


We're All the Gods' Playthings

by scandalsavage



Series: SladeRobin Week 2018 [5]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Anal Sex, Butt Plugs, Come Eating, Come Swallowing, Double Anal Penetration, Double Penetration, Emotional Manipulation, Greek mythology typical psuedo-incest, I don't even know how to tag what happens in this, Kinda, M/M, Mental Anguish, Mind Manipulation, Non-Consensual Blow Jobs, Non-Consensual Somnophilia, Object Insertion, Object Penetration, PTSD, Rape/Non-con Elements, Size Difference, Suicidal Thoughts, Violent Sex, i guess that's what it's called, magical coercion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-28
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2019-08-08 23:46:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 28,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16439117
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scandalsavage/pseuds/scandalsavage
Summary: Jason's in a lot of trouble and he doesn't know why. All he knows is the God of War is towering over him and he's pissed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Yikes. This is a darker direction than I expected this to go. Honestly my original plan was for this to be a little dub-conish at first but have a happy ending... I just don't see that happening now.
> 
> Rushed, as usually for this event.

Jason met Dick when he was on convalescent leave and suddenly the war didn’t feel like such a miserable, regrettable, waste.

Jason wasn’t a pacifist or anything. He definitely felt like this was a battle that needed to be fought. Sometimes it felt like they were holding the soul of the planet in their hands and whoever won would change the very fabric of reality.

No, it wasn’t that he had a problem with fighting, with killing. In fact his first patron deity, back when he’d been a skinny little street rat at the mercy of anyone bigger and stronger than him, had been the God of War, patron of fighters and warriors. He’d known, even then that the God of Truth and Justice, patron of the downtrodden and oppressed, would have been a better choice; he was more invested, less indifferent. But he was also less brutal and Jason had been full of anger and vengeance and wanted to see his abusers tormented. He doesn’t know if anything ever happened to them but as he got older that anger burned out of him. He went to medical school, switched patrons, and hadn’t looked back since.

Death and killing for a good cause didn’t bother him. But he was tired. He’d been fighting a long time. He missed the days back at the hospital in Gotham, healing people. He still mostly healed people, they were just soldiers on the front lines. But he’d also taken too many lives and made too many prayers to his first god. He felt like he was losing a piece of himself to this war.

So when he’d been injured saving some grunt left for dead, dragging him back to safety and taking out half a dozen enemy soldiers at the same time, a grateful part of him felt like he deserved the break; the chance to regroup.

He’d thought he was alone in the temple. He was praying, begging, for the God of Love, patron to healers and families, to help protect him from reverting to the angry young man he’d once been, when a warm hand rested on his shoulder.

Jason had looked up into deep blue eyes, so friendly and kind that he immediately felt like he was wrapped in a fluffy blanket.

Dick had asked if he was alright; taken him for a hot coffee when he’d said he wasn’t sure. And they’d pretty much been together ever since.

Jason blinks his eyes open slowly. His head hurts but he doesn’t remember getting hit. In fact the last thing he remembers is waiting for Dick to meet him outside the temple. He definitely didn’t remember a dark and scary… warehouse? But with torches for lights?

He shakes his head a little and he feels like the room sways. Usually Dick would have picked him up at the base. But until a couple days ago, when the intensity of the war flared up again, it had looked like it was about to reach a mutually beneficial resolution, and Jason had thought the temple’s gardens were a good place to ask Dick to move to Gotham with him at the end. He’d shamelessly played the war-hero card to get a few days leave for their first anniversary. And he’d still been planning to do it, not about to let a little thing like international unrest derail his plans. But an abduction is something he couldn’t have planned for.

Jason swallows as awareness comes back to him. His throat is parched. It is incredibly warm and dry in this building. He didn’t realize he couldn’t feel his arms or legs until he tries to move and then he can only gasp as the motions sends shocks of pain down his arms from wrists bound too tightly with cords keeping him hanging from the ceiling and up his legs from ankles chaffed raw by metal shackles chained loosely to the floor his toes can barely touch as he sways.

“Awake finally?” A low voice growls from the shadows.

Jason jumps sending another wave of pain through his body. Suddenly he’s fully alert.

And suddenly aware that he’s fully naked.

His heart is already pounding in his chest at the realization that someone stripped him and strung him up but when a beast of a man seems to materialize out of the shadows at the fuzzy edges of the torchlight he thinks it might have stopped beating completely.

He’s huge from across the room and he’s even more of a giant the closer he gets. Jason stands six feet and hanging the way he is adds another four or five inches… when the man stops a couple feet away Jason still has to look up at him.

His first thought is that it’s a pretty decent Deathstroke cosplay and briefly wonders if he’s been abducted by one of those crazy, radical cults that thinks the God of War is down for some human sacrifice.

His second though is infinitely more terrifying. There’s all kinds of stories about the gods walking among them, but, while it’s accepted that they makes appearances here and there, most people don’t _really_ believe that they mingle with humanity anymore.

The thought that this doesn’t really count as ‘mingling’ isn’t comforting as he scans the sleek black and orange armor looking for some indication that it was made in someone’s mom’s basement. His eyes slide to the very real looking gun on one thigh and then past the face to the unnecessarily large sword strapped to the man’s back.

Finally he looks at the face. And it looks _exactly_ like all the images in all the history and religious texts he’s ever seen. Shaggy white hair falls over one black eyepatch and one piercing, ice blue eye, cold as death, white goatee surrounds thin lips curled into a cruel, humorless smile.

All Jason’s doubt evaporates, leaving him cold and frightened. He feels the power pulsing off of every centimeter of the man before him.

This is _the_ Deathstroke. God of War.

The god scans him up and down, an unimpressed look in his eye, before grabbing Jason under his chin, hand so big the palm spans the width of his neck, the fingertips burry in his hair, and the tip of the thumb brushes his earlobe. His head is turned side to side, as if the deity is examining livestock.

Jason’s never felt smaller and so insignificant in his life.

He tries to choke back a cry of pain as the god shoves him before releasing his face and he swings back until the shackles pull taut and stop his momentum with another shock of agony. He doesn’t quite manage.

Deathstroke grins at the noise.

“Pretty, but nothing special,” he dismisses, voice like the low rumble of an earthquake and smooth as oil, “You must be an especially good fuck for a human.”

Jason has been too petrified to say anything and, really, he still is but he has no idea what the god means by that. Jason has the feeling Deathstroke is pissed at him for something but he can’t fathom what he’s done to anger the deity. If anything, he’s done nothing but honor him, fighting worthily and well, despite not being a warrior. It sounds like this could just be a misunderstanding. Either that or this is like one of those older stories about when the gods did interact regularly with humanity and Deathstroke _is_ actually interested in how well Jason fucks. He shudders at the thought that if the deity is even remotely proportional, he’s not going to survive.

How does one interact with a god? Should Jason plead? Pray? He wants to stay quiet but he can’t help himself. He needs to know why he’s here.

“Lord, plea—” a giant fist cracks across his face and he instantly tastes the iron tang of blood; feels it pour out of his mouth onto the floor as his vision blacks out for a moment.

“Shut up, whore,” the god spits with disgust while Jason tries to get a grip on the fear, tries to get air back into his lungs, tries to hold on to consciousness. Deathstroke’s hand closes around his throat and lifts his face again, “Filthy, fragile little things. Don’t know why he bothers.”

Jason doesn’t have time to wonder what that means. He was having enough trouble understanding what was happening before his brain was sent smashing into his skull anyway.

Suddenly he’s falling. His wrists are still bound and his ankles are still shackled to the floor but he’s released from the ceiling. He lands hard on his elbows and knees and he’d cry out but the wind is knocked from him immediately when an armored leg kicks into his gut before he can crumple to the floor, and holds him up. Tears are stinging his eyes and every gasp for breath is anguish.

He feels something tighten around his neck all at once and chokes when he’s jerked back by it. His bound hands fly up to his throat as he pulled upright onto his knees but there’s nothing physical there for him to tug at.

He’s vaguely aware that the tears are sliding down his cheeks freely now. The consistent deprival of oxygen is making him light-headed, making his vision blur on the edges.

Big fingers slide through his hair but to say that Deathstroke grabs hold of his hair wouldn’t be quite right… more that the hand grabs his whole head and pulls him back further so that his spine arches painfully.

Then there’s lips against his skin and hot, wet breath puffs out against his ear, “Lets try you out, hm. See what the big deal is.”

“Wha— _argh—_ ” Jason tries to protest, tries, again to get some context for why this is happening and once again is cut off, the invisible collar around his throat constricting. He’s breathing so infrequently now he’s amazed he hasn’t passed out yet.

“I’m a _god_ you little shit,” Deathstroke growls, “And I told you to shut up. You know what happens to sluts who disobey the will of the gods?”

When Deathstroke comes back into what little is left of Jason’s vision his armor’s gone and he’s completely, unabashedly naked.

Even through the haze of agony Jason realizes that, despite the marrow-deep blanket of terror he’s felt since the deity appeared, it wasn’t close to the fear the situation warranted.

Deathstroke is not proportional. His cock is half-again as big as it should be.

Jason’s close to passing out. He tries to give in to that to make it happen before whatever the god has planned.

And then the pressure on his throat loosens and Jason instinctually gulps in too much air, too fast. Coughing, he drops forward onto his hands and bows his head.

“Good answer. But not good enough,” the god laughs darkly and when Jason chances a glance up, just with his eyes, Deathstroke’s cock sways so much closer to his face than it was a moment ago that he can see the thick veins and the glint of precome beading at the tip.

Jason sobs which earns him another wicked chuckle.

And because he can’t speak he pleads in his mind, _oh gods, please… please, no; have mercy on me._

That hand is back, this time it does just grip his hair, and it pulls him roughly back to his knees. Jason keeps his teeth clamped shut as the god’s dick drags across his face, leaving behind a sticky streak, and stops against his lips. Tears are pouring down his face now and he squeezes his eyes shut. There’s no way that can get more than a couple inches without ripping his mouth wider.

“You’re praying for mercy from me while I stand in front of you?” Deathstroke scoffs.

Jason’s eyes snap open. He can hear the prayer?

Frantic, desperate, vibrating in terror Jason prays at him again.

_Please, Lord. I… I don’t know how I’ve offended you… I… **please** , I’ll do what I need to do to make it right I just—I don’t know what I’ve done…_

The god’s eye narrows, “Seriously?”

_Yes! Yes, I’m serious. I wouldn’t dare lie. Please…_

Deathstroke considers him for a moment. Then barks out deep, rumbling laugh.

“Poor little mortal,” he says with no hint of the sympathy his words imply, “He fucks your soft little body every day for a year and he didn’t even tell you the truth. You scream and you cry and you pray to the God of Love that he never leaves you because it’s the best thing you’ve ever felt. Not just the sex, all of it. He feels like home and hope. When you look at him he smiles at you like he knows, like he’s promising to never leave,” the pressure at his throat returns, though not as bad as before and Deathstroke’s eye blazes with an angry fire, “Another lie. He always leaves. Because he always returns to me.”

A year?

Jason forgets the order to not speak, “A—are you talk— _cough—_ talking a-about Dick?” he croaks weakly.

Deathstroke laughs again, louder this time and longer.

“I’m going to let that disobedience slide this time because ‘Dick’? Fuck that’s funny. What a dumbass,” the god huffs a little laugh at the end.

“Oh, man. Thanks for that, kid,” he says as he straightens and returns his focus to Jason.

Jason swallows hard, heart sinking into his stomach. Whatever this is about… he’s not getting out of it.

“So you had no idea that you’ve been getting your ass pounded by Nightwing for the last year?”

Jason feels his eyes get big and his jaw clamp shut. His irregular breathing gets even shallower. The trembling pulses out from his stomach until his whole body is shaking again.

His brain splits straight down the middle, one side can’t help but think _no way! Why would he pick me?_ And the other side, the dominant side just thinks _fuck, fuck, fuck_ , because—

“That’s right, slut. Did you enjoy fucking my husband?”

There’s no right answer to that, even though there is only one answer and they both know it—God of Love doesn’t just mean romantic love, it’s all love; familial love, brotherly love, making love—so Jason just starts sobbing again.

“Please,” he manages softly through the tears, “I didn’t know…”

“Mmhm,” Deathstroke rumbles, stands, presses his cock back to Jason’s cheek, rests a hand on Jason’s head, “And would it have changed anything if you had?”

Jason desperately wants to say yes; desperately wishes that if he did Deathstroke would believe him. But the truth is, even if he could convince himself that he would have been able to say no to Nightwing, he’d have been too scared to actually refuse. Because that’s the problem with gods. Every interaction is a catch-22. There’s only one story through the ages of a single person refusing Nightwing and the story is very clear about how Deathstroke had punished the mortal woman arrogant enough to reject the God of Love, avenging his lover’s wounded ego.

All Jason can do is weep so he squeezes his eyes closed and cries. He wants to stop because he thinks it’s just arousing Deathstroke more but he can’t help it, the promise of being fucked to death and dying in pain and suffering… he’s struggling to keep his grip on reality.

Abruptly the hand in his hair is a little smaller and the cock disappears from his cheek.

When he opens his eyes, Deathstroke is no longer a giant. He’s still not small, closer to human size but not quite. He’s still smiling coldly but it’s not quite as cruel as it was earlier.

Jason can’t help but glance between the god’s legs. He still cringes at how big it is, he won’t be able to relax his mouth at all and he’ll definitely be choking on it but at least it won’t give him a new smile to rival the God of Death’s. Still, Jason can’t help but wonder why Deathstroke is giving him even this small mercy.

“I appreciate the bravery you’ve shown in battle,” he says as though in answer to Jason’s musings, “And I like that you once chose to fight, to be mine, instead of praying to that champion of the weak and useless,” he scowls and Jason knows he’s talking about the Bat, the God of Truth and Justice. Then Deathstroke gives a sly grin and adds, “I also like the way you cry and choke and beg. So instead of just ripping you apart, I’ve decided to see if I like the way you scream and go from there.”

Jason shudders, definitely in fear at the promise enough pain to make him scream, and closes his eyes again, steeling himself.

It’s only a couple seconds before Deathstroke drags the head of his cock across Jason’s lips, glossing them in precome and if Jason’s body had ever stopped trembling it was certainly back at it now.

“Open up, little mortal,” Deathstroke hums, “show me why Nightwing is so obsessed with you.”

Jason opens his mouth immediately. He’s not about to give the god a reason to do anything worse than he’s already planning.

When the head rests on his tongue, Jason can smell smoke and gun oil and propellant; can taste blood and sweat and tears. It’s the taste and smell of war and it’s overwhelmingly acrid.

Jason gags. Deathstroke laughs and shoves in further. Jason’s jaw is as far down as it can go and he’s harshly reminded about how hot and arid it is in this room when his dry lips crack as they’re stretched wide.

He tries not to vomit as the god keeps sliding past his lips until his dick hits the back of Jason’s throat. Then Deathstroke gives a mean smirk, tugs Jason’s head back further, grows an inch or two in height, and the new angle allows him to _keep going_ until Jason’s nose is pressed against a soft white patch of hair and heavy balls rest against his chin. He can’t even breath through his nose, between Deathstroke’s cock and the invisible vice still wrapped around his throat his trachea is pinched closed. Saliva is welling up in his mouth and he tries to swallow, hoping he can get a little air that way, so he doesn’t drown in spit and cock but it doesn’t do anything but flex his throat. The god moans at the movement and gives a hard thrust while pressing the back of Jason’s head to him, as if he thinks he could get deeper.

Jason’s throat starts desperately working to get air on its own, making soft, pathetic little gagging noises as he’s slowly asphyxiated.

He opens his eyes and looks up through wet lashes to see Deathstroke watching him intently, eye dark, mouth slightly parted. He knows what he must look like, hair damp with sweat. Knows that when he cries his eyes look even brighter blue, knows there’s still tears streaming down his face, dripping off his chin to onto the god’s balls, knows his face is getting red, that his lids are falling as he creeps towards unconsciousness. Again.

_Please!_

Instantly Deathstroke pulls him off and he gasps desperately for air the moment there’s enough room to suck some in past the invading cock. Deathstroke removes it from his mouth completely, connected only by a thick strand of saliva.

Jason only has a couple of seconds of relief before the god pushes him back into position and shoves back in all the way, a lot less delicately this time, and holds him there again.

Again he feels like he’s going to die.

Just when he thinks he’s going to pass out he can breath again.

He closes his eyes again and keeps them that way this time.

Deathstroke repeats the cycle over and over again until Jason’s whole body aches; his wrists from the cords digging into his skin, his ankles from the metal shackles cutting into his flesh, his knees from digging into the hard stone on the floor, his back and abdominal muscles from the painful arch, his throat from the oral abuse and the collar, even his eyes hurt from crying so much.

There’s so much saliva it’s dripping off Jason’s chin and when the god decides he’s had enough of the torture, holds Jason’s head still between both hands, and starts fucking down into his throat, the motion is smooth and frictionless.

Jason has no doubt that Deathstroke could drag this out for hours if he wanted to so when the god’s pace stutters after just a few minutes Jason feels fortunate. His slams against Jason’s face painfully, lowers one of his hands to wrap around Jason’s throat so he can feel when his dick slides down Jason’s esophagus.

He still feels lucky when, nose once again buried against the god’s pubic hair and windpipe crushed between cock and collar, warm, bitter come pours down his throat and he starts to choke because he can’t move the muscles to swallow. He even still feels lucky when Deathstroke is somehow still coming as he slides his cock out of Jason’s throat and across his tongue to pump the remainder of his release all over Jason’s face, hair, and chest, because at least he can breath almost normally again.

“I think I’m beginning to see it,” the god rumbles, low and husky with want, as he runs his thumb over Jason’s lips and Jason flinches. He’d forgotten they’d been cracked and bleeding.

He opens his eyes again as best he can only for the disgust of Deathstroke licking the blood off his finger to be replaced by the horror that the god was still _very_ hard.

“Now that you’ve gotten me all nice and wet,” he purrs dangerously, “it’s time to move on to the main event.”

Jason starts hyperventilating as Deathstroke walks around behind him. He throws out his hands to try to catch himself when he’s shoved forward but suddenly they’re bound, unnecessarily tight, behind him, elbows to fingertips, and he barely has time to turn his face to avoid smashing his nose against the stone floor.

Deathstroke isn’t waiting for him to catch up this time. Jason feels him tug his asscheeks apart and cries out in pain when he pushes a huge, dry finger past his entrance without any preamble.

“Huh, no magic cunt. _How_ have you kept his interest for so long?”

It doesn’t sound like a question he’s meant to answer so he keeps focusing on his next breaths.

Which become shorter and anxious as he feels the god’s cockhead press against his hole. He grunts when the finger inside him curls and hooks on his rim, pulling down.

Deathstroke gets his scream when he presses in. The remnants of the saliva and come that had pooled around it in Jason’s throat when he couldn’t swallow is definitely better than nothing. But the sheer size is too much and Jason’s body can’t handle it when he bottoms out.

Jason screams again as he feels the muscle tear and he blacks out.

But it must not have been for very long because Deathstroke is still pumping into him when he manages to drag his lids open and it’s still excruciating.

“Back with me?”

There’s a callous amusement in his voice.

“You didn’t stop sobbing the whole time you were out.”

Jason couldn’t respond if he wanted to, which he doesn’t, so he stays silent.

He chokes on a violent thrust. His hole feels pulverized, overused, viciously wrecked. He must have been unconscious longer than he’d thought. He feels it threaten to overtake him again and tries to give in.

“You scream so beautifully,” the god continues casually, as he pulls Jason back onto his cock, brutally, over and over again, “I decided not to finish before you woke up just so I could hear it again.”

Jason doesn’t bother trying to hold back the pained wail he lets loose and forces himself to stay present. Who knows how long this will take if Deathstroke waits him out every time he faints.

“That’s it, whore, now you’re starting to understand.”

Deathstroke slams into him again, drawing a whimper, and stills, keeping them pressed together. Jason has a moment of confusion because it doesn’t feel like the god is orgasming again.

Then he experiences the most horrifying sensation he’s ever felt in his life up to this moment.

He tries to wriggle away but Deathstroke laughs and digs his nails into Jason’s hip.

He shakes uncontrollably, keening, as the cock inside him starts to lengthen, moving the short distance to the end of his passage.

Or what he thought was the end, but it just keeps going.

The scream on his lips is short as the extreme agony of the slow progress into his intestines drives the air from his lungs. Just when he thinks it can’t get any worse, it starts to slowly widen.

 _Oh my god, please… just let it end._ He doesn’t pray it to anyone in particular. And he certainly isn’t praying to the creature redefining his concept of pain and violation.

He feels like he’s been here for years. He misses his bunk at the barracks, misses his friends, misses Gotham, misses the war… he misses Dick; misses the way Dick would hold him in his warm arms, the way he would lay a blanket over him and put a marker in his book when he fell asleep reading, misses making him chocolate chip pancakes just to get him to eat something other than cereal.

One of Deathstroke’s hands tangles in his hair and pulls him upright, pressing Jason’s back and bound arms to his chest, and every small movement makes Jason wish for death. The other hand reaches around him and rests low on his belly.

Then one of his own hands is free and Deathstroke grabs it and brings it back down with his. Jason can’t help but sag back against the god, letting the arm around his hips hold him up. All his energy is leeched as he feels the cockhead moving under his skin, feels it pulse and throb deep in his guts, coming where no one ever should be able to come, feels so completely and uncomfortably full. Feels so thoroughly debased that he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to come back from this, doesn’t know how he’ll live with himself. He almost hopes Deathstroke kills him now so that he doesn’t have to try to figure out how to go on after this; with the knowledge that this happened.

The grip in his hair loosens and the fingers wipe tears from his cheek so gently he flinches at the change in tactics. Then the fingers press against his lips and that’s more familiar.

Jason lets his jaw fall open; lets Deathstroke fuck his fingers into his mouth. He can’t move, doesn’t want to; just hopes he dies here soon.

“Yeah,” the god murmurs in his ear sounding almost… fond, “I get it now.”

He doesn’t have the energy to do anything more than sob as the pain returns when Deathstroke starts to… pull out of him. He can’t believe he can still feel anything. Wonders, vaguely and with no real interest if it’s the god’s doing.

“What’s going on?” a voice says from behind them. Jason thinks it sounds familiar but it also sounds so distant… he can’t… he can’t quit place it but it makes something inside him feel warm and safe. “And how many times have I told you to stop turning this place into a creepy dungeon every time I leave?”

Deathstroke’s cock pops out of him with an obscene squelch and he manages a quiet whimper as he realizes that the god had kept coming the entire time he was removing himself, the wetness dripping from his loose hole driving home the fact.

Deathstroke lets him collapse on the floor as he says, “Welcome home, my love. We need to talk.”

Jason’s vision is going blissfully dark again but he sees a set of feet and hears, “Is that Jason?! What have done to him, you fucking brute?”

It doesn’t sound that angry. More like irritated; like a kid who has to fix a favorite toy that his friend messed up.

With that thought, Jason slips into the sweet reprieve of unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SladeRobin Week Day 5 - Force/Arranged Marriage
> 
> Like just barely. But enough to qualify I think.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updating tags as I go. Please be sure to check before each new chapter.

Jason regains consciousness slowly, like slogging through mud or trying to walk in a pool. The first thing his mind registers is that he’s not laying on hard, cold stone anymore. Whatever he’s laying on now feels like the weightless, surrounded feeling of floating on water, but warmer, cozier. He realizes he’s still naked but he’s covered, tucked in between a thick, puffy, down comforter and too many fluffy pillows.

He shifts to burrow in deeper before he can think about it and then stiffens in expectation of pain. The way Deathstroke had used him; there should be real misery over every inch of his body, outside and in. Jason doesn’t even feel a slight hint of discomfort.

He wants to convince himself it was a dream. He tries to tell himself that when he opens his eyes he’ll be in Dick’s bed, a nasty bump on his head to account for the missing time and sickening nightmare. But he can feel that there’s no bump and Dick’s bed is soft but it’s still just a mattress, it doesn’t feel like being wrapped in a cloud.

But more than anything else, it’s the lingering taste of propellant on his tongue that’s preventing Jason from really embracing that version of events.

He keeps his eyes closed and his breathing deep and strains his hearing, trying to pick up any indication that he’s not alone. If the gods are in here, he doesn’t really want to alert them that he’s awake.

He lays there like that for a couple minutes, focusing intently on what he can hear. When he’s as reasonably certain as he can be that there is no one else in the room he opens his eyes tentatively.

All he can see are fluffy white and blue pillows. He gives a little sigh of defeat. It’s not like he can pretend to be asleep forever anyway, so he sits up.

The wet, soppy sensation that movement jostles inside him instantly makes him feel ill and he lurches to the side of the bed to hurl, only just managing to not when he finds that there is no side of the bed to lean over.

Well there is, he notes as he braces himself and tries to regain some composure, it’s just unusually far away. He remembers how large Deathstroke had been before he shrunk down and shudders, feeling the fear creep up around him as he considers the possibility that this is _his_ bed.

Jason looks around.

The room is dotted with white marble pillars. There are also three walls of white marble around him, in front, behind, and to the left of him. To the right, where a fourth should be there’s nothing but some gauzy, pastel orange, curtains fluttering in the breeze coming from the balcony that stretches beyond. He can see the darkening sky past the railing but no mountains or buildings or even land to help him figure out where he is.

There are big double doors in the wall to his left, painted white with intricate, interweaving patterns of pale blues and oranges.

He looks around again before glancing back at the doors. He doesn’t see his clothes anywhere. Even if he did, there’s a pretty good chance that the only things beyond those doors are deities and their minions.

His eyes creep back to the balcony. He wonders how high up they are; low enough to escape out that way? Or high enough? Escape of either kind, he’s not feeling very picky right now.

He crawls the rest of the way to the edge of the bed and swings his legs over. He doesn’t know why he’s surprised that his feet dangle, that the ground is still a good two feet below him, but he is. He also doesn’t know why he’s surprised to find, after looking down, that his torso is covered in dried come.

He shudders in revulsion and hesitantly reaches up; feels it crusted in his hair.

He barely makes it to the ceramic vase at the base of the nearest pillar before he finally gives in to the urge and vomits.

He pants over the vase for a minute. Why is this happening to him? This can’t be real. There has to be another explanation. Maybe he’s crazy, or so ill that that he’s delirious and hallucinating. It doesn’t matter if it _is_ real, he thinks, it only matters that it _feels_ real.

Without warning a big, warm hand strokes his back. Jason recoils so violently he stumbles and falls backwards, bare ass landing hard on more white marble.

He keeps his head turned away and his eyes squeezed shut. Whatever is about to happen, he doesn’t want to see it.

“It’s just me, Jason,” Dick’s voice says gently, warm as a fire in a hearth.

All at once anger floods into him, pushing down the fear and any whisper of self-preservation. He turns and glares up at that kind face, directly into those friendly eyes, and the feeling of family that washes over him only fans his rage.

“And who _are_ you?” Jason tries to growl at him but each syllable catches like satin on sandpaper in his abused throat and he’s lucky if half of them even came out at all.

Dick’s, no, Nightwing’s, expression somehow softens even more. He reaches out and brushes his fingers over Jason’s throat.

Jason barely restrains the impulse to pull away.

“I healed you. But he demanded I leave something,” the God of Love explains, “This was the least of your injuries.”

Jason doesn’t take his eyes off of Dick’s face as he licks his lips and swallows a couple times, working some moisture down his throat.

“Leaving me like this wasn’t enough?” Jason rasps and indicates the caked mess covering his body.

Dick’s eyes go dark and lustful, raking over Jason from his hair, down his torso to where he’s still laying, sprawled out from his fall, legs spread just enough that Dick’s eyes drag to where Jason’s ass is pressed against the floor. The look draws Jason’s attention to the slight dampness between his cheeks that certainly wasn’t there before. He realizes, with horror, that the impact with the floor and the way he’s sitting has allowed some of the come trapped inside him to leak out.

“That was my choice. I… enjoy, seeing you covered in his release.”

Jason huffs in disbelief. His mind is reeling, he’s still trying to process and accept everything that’s happening but there’s just too much.

He almost wants to thank the deity crouching in front of him. The unwitting cruelty in that comment, in that action, drives Dick, the man he’d loved, and Nightwing, god and husband to Deathstroke, together in his mind. His confusion at how they could be the same being swept away and replaced with harsh clarity.

“That’s…” Jason chokes, “That’s… mean.”

Nightwing raises his brows in surprise, “It is?”

Jason lets out an incredulous laugh that turns into a gasp as a sharp spasm of pain bursts down his trachea, ending with a fit of coughing.

When Nightwing reaches for him he holds up a hand to stop him.

“He… what he did to me…” Jason pants, tears stinging his eyes again, “It was… it was…” he doesn’t have the words for what it was, “And you… you left the… evidence everywhere. N—not because you couldn’t m—magic it away… Because it turns you on?”

The god blinks at him. “Yes…”

Jason blinks back, shakes his head because he doesn’t remember Dick being this clueless; this selfish; this cruel.

Not Dick. Nightwing.

“You know,” Jason croaks softly, looking down to gaze at a grey vein in the marble on the floor, “the whole time, after he… after he told me who you were, I… I kept thinking, ‘how can someone as loving and kind as Dick be married to someone so… so brutal… so hateful,” Jason looks up, pointedly into deep sapphire eyes, “I see it now too.”

Nightwing cocks his head and his expression cools, “Do you, now?”

Jason feels a trap. So he stays quiet and doesn’t resist a moment later when Nightwing leans forward and scoops him easily into his arms like a child. What good would it do to fight?

He flinches when Nightwing deposits him back onto the bed and crawls in himself. But he just sits, back against the wall, and pulls Jason into his lap.

Jason holds as still as he can, breathing shallow, muscles tense. He can feel the bulge of Nightwing’s cock against his back, cringes when he realizes that it’s at least a little hard. But of course, the strong, warm arms that wrap around him, restrain him, feel nice and safe. He tries to fight that feeling, fight the instinct to sink into it.

“Most people think that love and hate are opposites,” the god says, voice smooth and deep and comforting. Jason can feel its vibrations through the chest pressed against his shoulders, “They think hate is what leads to war and love is what leads to peace. But none of those things can exist without the others and love can lead to war and hate can lead to peace as easily as the other way around. Not only are they not mutually exclusive but they’re all children of passion. Love and hate are the same thing. War and peace cannot exist without each other. Love and War are complimentary pieces. Not opposites. How can we be together? There was no other choice—”

The doors open and Jason tries to jerk out of Nightwing’s grip when Deathstroke strides through, as large and terrifying as ever. Nightwing just holds tighter with one arm while the other moves up to run fingers through Jason’s hair soothingly.

“—Our union was arranged by fate, by the very fabric of the cosmos. That which breathed life into the universe made us for each other. How can we not be bound together?”

Jason doesn’t like the way Deathstroke is eyeing them from across the room. He _really_ doesn’t like the way Nightwing’s cock leaps in interest as they lock gazes over Jason’s shoulder.

“He likes you,” Nightwing hums in his ear.

Jason doesn’t know what to make of that. He’s actually pretty certain that he doesn’t want Deathstroke to like him.

“That’s what he does to people he likes?”

Deathstroke snorts and moves to a jug on the far side of the room.

Nightwing chuckles softly, “He didn’t like you. He does now.”

Jason shudders when the god nips his ear and anxiety immediately starts to build in his gut. The same gut Deathstroke somehow managed to fuck, how long ago? Days? Hours?

“He told me he likes the way you fight. That’s his way of saying he likes the passion you throw at everything you do. I told him that’s what drew me to you,” Nightwing’s tongue glides over the shell of Jason’s ear and he closes his eyes and turns away. The god presses hot, wet kisses down his now exposed neck instead, “That you’re like a little human version of him with all that rage and fire and passion. He likes that you’re like a little human version of me; all that lust,” Nightwing’s hand slides down his abs and Jason inhales sharply when the god wraps a hand around Jason’s cock and starts stroking slowly, “…and fire and passion. Your respect for life tempered by your willingness to do what needs to be done. You hate people as much as you love them. You try to convince yourself you don’t enjoy taking a life as much as you enjoy saving one, but we all know the truth.”

The bed dips and Jason’s eyes fly open to see Deathstroke, naked again, situating himself in front of him.

The panic that’s been slowly building since he entered the room breaks free and Jason tries desperately to back away in effort to put distance between them, breath coming hard and fast. All it does is press him further into Nightwing’s now bare skin.

“Don’t worry, lover, he’ll be… well, not gentle but more careful, from now on,” Nightwing hums in his ear.

Jason stiffens. His mouth goes completely dry.

“Wh—what do you mean, ‘from now on?’” he grates, unable to keep the quaver from his voice.

“He likes you,” Nightwing says, hand sliding down Jason’s now hard cock and travelling lower to roll his balls gently between sure fingers, while Deathstroke’s hands grip his ankles firmly. He wishes Nightwing would stop touching him. His touch is Dick’s touch and the thought brings tears to his eyes.

“That means you get to stay. That was always my plan. From the moment you prayed to me to help you fight your dual nature,” Nightwing breaths. Deathstroke starts pushing on Jason’s ankles, sliding them up the bed closer to his body, raising his knees. Nightwing’s hand takes advantage of the newly available access to dip two long, hot fingers into Jason’s hole, their path slicked by the leftover wet of his previous violation. He closes his eyes and turns away from them both, trying to hold back openly weeping.

Nightwing’s mouth follows him, still talking into his ear, voice increasingly breathless, fingers sliding in and out of him lazily, “That was your plan too, wasn’t it? You wanted me to move to Gotham with you…”

Jason remembers praying to the God of Love that Dick would say yes. He takes a shaky, sobbing, breath and hopes that eventually he runs out of tears.

“I was going to tell you about me that night. Tell you about my husband,” Deathstroke bites the inside of Jason’s knee making him jerk in the god’s grip; Nightwing’s fingers find his prostate and press down; and he whimpers, “Introduce you both. I wish it could have happened the way I wanted. I’m sorry it came about the way it did, but the results are the same and that’s what matters.”

Deathstroke bites the inside of his thigh, halfway between knee and groin, and Jason groans. The pressure on his ankles stays, keeping the heels of his feet pressed against the bottom curve of his ass, while Deathstoke’s hands move up, pushing his thighs open wider. More fucking god magic.

Nightwing’s words sink in and he twitches. That is _not_ what matters to Jason. He doesn’t want to be with Dick—Nightwing—anymore, let alone the monster who brutalized him, just because the physical reminders are gone.

“No…” he whispers, _begs_ , “please… _please_ let me go. I—I just want to go home.”

“This is your home now,” Deathstroke growls, shoving two of his own, thicker fingers into Jason’s hole, joining Nightwing’s.

Jason cries out and thrashes as much as he can, but he’s pinned down.

While they both work him open, spreading their fingers wide, curling against his prostate, lacing them together inside him like a knot, Nightwing is pressing gentle, pacifying kisses all over his face and neck. Every one of them makes Jason feel warmer, more relaxed, muscles releasing their built-up tension. When Nightwing slides a third finger into him and he whimpers, the god’s mouth presses to his, tongue pushing gently past his lips to lazily explore his mouth. Jason melts; a pleasant haze settling over his mind.

He’s so out of it that when Deathstroke’s free hand grips his jaw and throat and pulls him into a rough kiss, Jason’s tongue meets the intrusion and he kisses back. When Deathstroke also adds a third finger all Jason can do is moan. He can feel the stretch, but it feels nice. Feels… right.

He’s vaguely aware of Deathstroke humming against his lips, “Hmmm… I thought you weren’t going to do that?”

Jason has no idea what he could be talking about; obviously he was always going to do this, let them spread him open, work him up, use him however they wanted… it’s what he wants too.

“I said I wouldn’t _have_ to, not that I wouldn’t,” the voice of home and happiness says from over his shoulder, “I’m not sure I trust _you_ not to hurt him again. Not yet. This is the easiest way.”

Deathstroke snorts and Jason has to agree. Why would Deathstroke hurt him?

“You mean this is the easiest way for you.”

“Are you really going to complain?”

“Nope. I’m getting what I want.”

Six god-sized fingers fan out wide inside him and Jason gasps, back arching in pleasure, chest pressing against Deathstroke’s, shoulders pushing back into Nightwing’s chest. His eyes flutter closed in bliss.

“ _Fuck_.”

“Told you.”

There’re hot lips back at his neck and cooler ones at his nipple and he moans at the difference. Everything feels so much more intense. There’s something in the back of his head telling him there’s something wrong but the voice is distant and getting farther away.

“I think he’s as ready as he’s going to be.”

“Good because I’m way past.”

“He’s a mortal. They take a little effort. You can’t just dive in or you can kill them.”

“I’ve fucked mortals before, _dick_.”

“And how many of them survive a night with you?”

There’s a deep growl.

Jason gets the vaguest hint that something there should worry him but a wave of pleasure washes over him when the fingers thrust up deep, lace together and drag down catching his prostate.

And then they’re gone and he feels so empty and abandoned. He lets out a long pitiful whine.

“Hush, Jay, you’re okay. We’re still here. We’re not leaving.”

“Yeah, we’re not quite done with you yet, little human.”

Four big hands, though slightly smaller than a few moments ago, grip him firmly, two under his arms and two at his hips, lifting and shifting him back.

The two at his hips slip back and grab his ass, pulling his cheeks open and guiding him down.

He feels a large cock slide into him as he’s lowered onto it. He thinks groggily that it’s easier than it should be, he feels it but it doesn’t feel overwhelming.

There’s more shuffling when he’s fully seated. He couldn’t open his eyes if he wanted to and when a strong arm wraps back around his chest to steady him he lets his head fall back onto the shoulder of the man he loves.

“That’s right, babe,” is hummed into his ear and he feels it vibrate all the way into his soul as he’s dragged further back, until he’s comfortable reclined against the god, “we’ve got you.”

He feels his legs lifted, his ankles placed on strong, broad shoulders, and he’s being folded back until his thighs nearly touch his stomach.

Something blunt and wet and warm bumps against where his stretched rim meets the cock currently occupying his passage. He whimpers worriedly at the suggestion.

“You’re fine, babe. I promise. I won’t hurt you.”

Jason relaxes. Of course, Dick wouldn’t lie to him.

Two slick fingers return and slide into him easily. Then they’re pulling up on his entrance and that feels odd but not bad.

The tip of the blunt thing presses more insistently and starts to enter. And now the stretch is enough to cause a little discomfort, but Dick’s voice is still at his ear, telling him everything is okay, telling him how good he’s doing. His arms are wrapped around Jason’s chest and his fingers are rubbing soothing circles into his sides, and everything Dick says and does floods him with warmth and reassurance.

The second cock starts to slide into him faster and he chokes at the extreme full feeling.

“Can you breathe for me, Jason.”

He hadn’t realized he’d stopped but now that he has, taking a breath seems almost impossible. But Dick wouldn’t have asked him to if it wasn’t important so, with great effort, he inhales shakily.

“Wow. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this in action.”

“Admit it, you miss it. It gets _you_ hot too.”

The breathless _fuck_ is accompanied by a rough thrust from above him and this time Jason screams.

“Damnit, D…”

“I don’t know, that sounded different than the ones from last night,” there’s lips against the sensitive skin next to his mouth and stubble scratches against him as he’s asked, “Did you like that, little mortal?”

Jason moans and shifts his hips.

“I want to hear you say it, slut—”

“D…”

“It’s fine, isn’t it, whore? You like it. You want more don’t you?”

Jason sobs.

“Words, human.”

“ _Yes!_ Please… _more_ ,” he begs.

“Tell us what you want.”

Jason whines. He’s so hot and so full and so sensitive… he can’t… words are… they’re right there…

“ _Please!_ ” he gasps, “god, please… _fuck me_.”

“There it is.”

“Shit, Jason. You’re so perfect.”

On of the arms wrapped around his chest moves up to his shoulder for leverage pushing Jason down as the man on top of him thrusts up into him hard.

His visions whites out. He wants to scream as Deathstroke fucks in, sliding Jason up Dick’s cock with the force of it, and as Dick pulls him back down, chasing Deathstroke as he pulls back out. But there’s no air in him.

He clings to Dick’s arms as movements stay the same, but the pace ratchets up to a vicious speed. He tries not to black out again. This is good. This is right. He wants this. It feels so good.

After what feels like hours, Deathstroke reaches around him and the entirety of his upper body is pressed tightly between the two gods.

He hears the wet smack of lips and tongues and teeth over a shoulder but doesn’t have the energy or presence of mind to look.

He doesn’t feel his own orgasm. He’s just suddenly vaguely aware of a warm, wetness between him and the abs that provided the friction. He thinks he hears a soft chuckle and a derisive ‘ _that’s cute_ ’ but he can’t focus on anything but the overwhelming stretch.

He doesn’t feel his own… but he feels theirs. They come together, a wave of warm, viscous, liquid fills every available space until it has nowhere to go but down and out.

He feels fingers trace around where their cocks are slowly softening, where they’re both still giving aborted little thrusts, still wringing the last of their seed deep into his passage.

When those fingers leave, others replace them and while those dip into the come and move around, the first set presses to his lips.

Jason opens obediently. The fingers invade his mouth, wiping come on his tongue. When he closes his lips and sucks, he gets a pleased hum.

He tastes smoke and gun oil and propellent, bitter and metallic. But he also tastes the more familiar flavors of coffee and chocolate and sugar, warm and welcoming. He thinks god-come is so much better than human. He could live off it. Fortunately, when the fingers drag across his tongue and pull out of his mouth they’re immediately replaced by others.

When everything slows down he starts fading fast. He doesn’t feel as warm anymore. In fact, he’s shivering, even though he doesn’t necessarily feel cold. There’s an ache creeping into his muscles, a dull throbbing between his legs, slowly growing in intensity. The warm haze over his mind is receding.

He hisses weakly when his body is shifted to lie back on the bed.

They’re in his vision as his lids fall heavier each moment, looking down at him, smiling.

He tries to focus on Dick—Nightwing—opens his mouth and has to close it again and swallow.

Finally, right before he loses consciousness, he manages a quiet, “I hate you.”

He thinks he sees the god’s smile brighten.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo... yeah...
> 
> Once again, I'm not even really sure how to tag this so if I've left something out please let me know. Definitely check the tags before each new chapter (although this may seem a little tame compared to the first two ;) )

Jason finds no peace in his sleep. He dreams of people he’s never seen before touching him, holding him, fucking him…

In the past, his wet dreams had always been of people he was at least vaguely familiar with; his high school lit teacher, the detective he’d given a medical opinion to just after ending his residency and getting hired full time, and, when he’d had to go back to the war, Dick. Constantly. Every night they were away from each other.

But now, his dreams slide from stranger to stranger. The first ones aren’t bad, the fiery red hair and green eyes they share are maybe a little familiar and the woman actually asks him if he wants to be with them while the man smiles sweetly. They’re beautiful, their touches are gentle, and they _asked_ and he’s so desperate for that respect he says yes. They’re a tangle of limbs and the details fade but it was… pleasant.

The next is another red-head and Jason’s subconscious wonders if he has a type he didn’t know about. This one doesn’t ask before dragging his hands all over Jason’s body but he, too, is gentle. And done with him quickly.

It’s the ones who come after that’ll haunt his nightmares. The one is nothing but a black blur where a face should be, atop a crisp white suit. His voice is cold and cruel as he says something about preparing Jason but everything after that is a haze of pain and humiliation.

Then the lights in his dream go out and he’s surrounded by pitch black. He thinks the odd dreams are over, that maybe now he can dream about Gotham or kittens or something, anything, other than sex. Then there’s a laugh, high pitched and blood-curdling, and it echoes around in his mind, joined by others as the source moves closer. Cool fingers run gently across his chest while something heavy and cold like metal drags down his spine and he tries to get away from it but he can’t move. There’s hot breath, reeking of rot, at his ear and the voice says something about knowing his secret. Jason’s confused; tries to ask what it’s talking about, but before the words can pass his lips something flat and wide and metal presses against him, is shoved inside him, and it scrapes at the walls of his passage. Only the end is flat and flared, the rest is rounded like a rod. He screams but the sound is swallowed by the darkness. He’s so delirious with pain that he can’t think of anything other than trying to force himself to wake up.

He can tell he’s dreaming, it’s just so vivid; so different. He can’t break free. As if the new reality of his life wasn’t bad enough. Now his dreams are attacking him. The darkness doesn’t stop, just forces the object deeper, pulling it back and ramming it in like it’s trying to impale him on it.

Jason jolts awake screaming, drenched in sweat, tears streaming down his face. His hands are clenched in the sheets of the too-big bed, knuckles white.

His chest is heaving as he pants, trying to catch his breath. He pats his hands all over his torso as if to make sure everything is still there.

When he flops back onto the bed in relief he winces. It’s not the pain from his dreams. It’s the pain from his waking nightmare. Unlike the first time, it seems that Nightwing didn’t bother to heal him after their… encounter.

But just like the first time, it seems that they have, again, left him covered, and filled, with come.

He doesn’t vomit this time. The light coming in from the balcony is gray and cold; it helps settle his churning stomach. It’s early, the sun hasn’t even fully risen. He’s alone again and he breathes a shaky sigh of relief past the knot in his throat that they’ll inevitably return.

He’s making his way to the balcony to see what he has to work with, whether he can escape or throw himself over the edge, trying to ignore how disgusting he feels with every movement either roiling or cracking uncomfortably, when the door behind him opens.

Jason spins around and catches himself just before he fucking _prays_ that it’s not Nightwing or Deathstroke.

Relief floods every cell as an older man with white hair and a white mustache enters. He’s carrying a tray of food and a pitcher. Jason’s belly rumbles at the sight and he realizes he hasn’t eaten since… breakfast, before he left the front to meet with Dick. It seems like a different lifetime, but it has to have only been a couple days at most. He’s not sure exactly how long it’s been; everything since waking up in that dungeon, hanging from the ceiling, has been a bitter and confused fog of pain and pleasure.

Jason does finally remember he’s not wearing any clothing and quickly grabs a sheet off the bed, wrapping it around himself.

The newcomer looks amused but smiles kindly and states, “You must be quite hungry by now.”

The man has an English accent, straight spine, and a ‘don’t mess with me’ vibe that reminds Jason of Alfred and he feels a pang of sadness at the realization that he’ll probably never see him again.

Jason swallows that lump down and nods affirmatively.

The man looks at him and raises his eyebrows, “Well, I’m not going to throw it into your mouth from here, son.”

Jason jolts forward toward the table; simple rectangle top, made of a pale, ash-colored wood, with elaborately carved legs featuring scenes of… well, Jason can’t tell if the people are fighting or fucking and he guesses that’s the point Di—Nightwing was trying to make earlier.

As he approaches, he wonders if he’s going to have to stand to eat because, like everything else, the table is god-sized. But when he arrives, the man touches the table with his hand and it, and the accompanying benches, shrink down to a level more appropriate for a ‘little human’.

Jason slides onto the bench in front of the platter and hugs his arms closer together under the sheet. He feels a little less comfortable now that the man is behind him.

“Which god are you?” Jason asks, hoping the answer is ‘celibacy’ and popping a grape into his mouth. He barely holds back a moan at the explosion of juice across his tongue. He tries to remember his manners but he’s hungrier than he’d thought.

“I’m not a god,” the man smirks at the ferocity with which Jason shovels the food into his mouth, and humor at the way Jason carefully avoids the oysters, chocolates, strawberries, and pomegranate seeds, “I’m Wintergreen, the Spirit of Combat.”

Jason nods as he chugs a glass of ice-cold water, pours another, and immediately downs that too. He’s pretty sure that Spirits are still technically gods, but he’s not as familiar with the lesser deities as he once was… and he supposes that the distinction is more important between the immortals. He has a feeling this place really digs their heels into the hierarchy of their… social classes?

When Jason finally slows down, he looks up at Wintergreen, “So… you’re one of Deathstroke’s… minions?”

Wintergreen raises his brows and his mouth quirks downwards at the choice of words.

“I suppose,” he says, “I am one of his Family and exist to provide him with support.”

Jason wipes bread crumbs and oil from his mouth with the sheet and frowns at his plate trying to remember the gods and their families. He doesn’t see the way Wintergreen scowls at his improper use of the sheet.

“So Nightwing and Deathstroke… their kids—”

“Are around,” Wintergreen says unhelpfully, as he moves to the bed and starts stripping it down.

Before Jason can think of follow up questions to get some idea of how this place works, the door behind him opens again. He doesn’t even get the chance to turn around to look before he’s pulled into a familiar embrace, warm hands sinking easily beneath the sheet to rub up and down the bare skin of his sides. Just a few days ago he would have melted into it, now he stiffens in apprehension.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” Nightwing kisses his ear and nips at the thin skin behind it, “And Wintergreen brought you food. That’s good.”

He leans over, nudging Jason forward too, and grabs a chocolate. Then pauses and narrows his eyes at the tray.

“You didn’t even touch the good stuff,” he pouts.

Jason swallows. ‘The good stuff’ he didn’t touch are all foods associated in myth and legend with Nightwing’s seductions; foods that gave him more power. After whatever the god had done to him last time, he doesn’t think Nightwing needs any more power over him.

He hopes, _not_ prays, that the god doesn’t make him eat any of them.

Nightwing just gives him a knowing smile that makes Jason’s skin prickle.

“Sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up,” he croons into Jason’s ear, hands moving to tug the fabric of the sheet off Jason’s shoulders, “I had an amazing idea and wanted to get to Arsenal early enough that I could give it to you today.”

Nightwing hands Jason a box that looks small in the god’s hand but is pretty decent sized in his own, wrapped in light blue paper and tied with a pale orange ribbon. Like a present. Jason has a feeling it’s not going to be something he’ll like as much as Nightwing will.

“Arsenal?” he tries to stall, “The Tinkerer?”

“God of Invention and Innovation,” Nightwing grins, bites Jason’s shoulder, “He makes the best _toys_.”

Jason shudders at the double entendre. He’s definitely not going to like whatever is in the box.

“You… you didn’t have to get me anything,” Jason tries even though he knows it’s hopeless.

“I know I didn’t _have_ to. I wanted to.”

When he still doesn’t move to unwrap it, mind looking for any other excuse, Nightwing’s grip around his waist tightens, his other hand moving to pull the sheet away from the rest of Jason’s body.

His lips move against Jason’s ear as he hums, “Open it, Jay.”

Jason closes his eyes and swallows hard. The faster he can will himself to accept this the… well, the less awful it’ll be if he’s not constantly on edge.

He gives a shaky sigh of resignation and starts peeling the paper back.

When he has it open, his whole body flushes pink. He’s suddenly reminded that Wintergreen is still in the room moving around, remaking the bed now, but still too near. The idea that Nightwing asked Arsenal to make this _specifically_ makes the heat rise under his skin in embarrassment.

He feels Nightwing’s grin on his neck, “Do you like it?”

“Wh—What is it?” He knows exactly what it is.

“You’re adorable,” Nighwing chuckles, reaching an arm around Jason to lift it out of the satin it’s resting on, “Let’s use it now.”

Jason knew that’s where this was going but he’s still surprised when Nightwing starts to shove him forward toward the table, free hand dropping to guide his leg up to the bench so that he’s kneeling on it.

He throws a panicked look at Wintergreen who is resolutely ignoring them and going about his business.

“Don’t worry about him,” Nightwing rumbles, switching the toy to his other hand so that he can pull Jason’s other knee onto the bench, “he doesn’t care.”

Jason knows that too.

He barely has a chance to shove the tray out of the way as Nightwing pushes his torso flat to the table and spreads his knees wider on the bench.

When the breeze from the balcony wafts across his hole the chill of the cooling wetness there contrasts sharply, and unpleasantly, with Nightwing’s warm hands holding his cheeks apart.

“ _Wow_ ,” the god murmurs with hushed reverence as his fingers whisper over Jason’s, sopping, stretched opening, “Gods, Jay… you’re so fucking gorgeous.”

Two fingertips dip in too easily; after taking two gods, Jason’s body offers no resistance.

“You really are so perfect, my love,” Nightwing breathes and Jason tries to push back the memories of Dick saying these things to him. It sounds the same in that light, cheerful, tone but it’s different. Dick was a partner, a peer. They were equals and Dick had called him beautiful while he sat reading in worn sweats and a baggy t-shirt as often as he said it to Jason’s ass when he had him bent over, or more.

Nightwing doesn’t waste any time. He tangles a big hand in Jason’s hair, gets a firm grip on Jason’s shoulder with the other, and sinks into him in one quick, fluid motion.

“ _Ah!—_ ngh, _”_ Jason cries out at the initial penetration. Evidently Nightwing has decided that he doesn’t need to make himself norm—human sized.

Apparently he also doesn’t think he needs to start slowly.

Jason bites on his wrist in an attempt to keep his pained grunts and gasps silent as Nightwing jackhammers into him, cockhead slamming against the back of Jason rectum on every thrust. Jason thinks it’s pretty messed up that his only feeling is gratitude; that all he can think about is how _thankful_ he is that Nightwing isn’t going any further. Because Jason knows now that he _could_.

Nightwing’s hand slides down to grasp his bicep and tug his arm away from his mouth.

“I want to hear you,” he breathes and punctuates the command with a particularly brutal thrust that pulls a wounded groan from Jason’s lips.

Nightwing’s pace falters, “Am I hurting you?”

Jason almost laughs. Of fucking course he’s hurt, hurting, being hurt. In every way he can feel pain, Jason’s feeling it; physically, emotionally, mentally… everything hurts. Instead, he gives a dry sob.

And suddenly that hazy warmth is spreading through him from where Nightwing’s hand is in his hair, from where Nightwing grips his arm, from where Nightwing’s cock is buried deep.

“No,” he pants, “Not that. Please, don’t. Don’t do that.”

He doesn’t want to be magically manipulated into enjoying this…

“Shh, it’s ok,” his pace goes back to bruising and brutal but Jason thinks it’s better than breathing, “I don’t want to hurt you. This will help.”

Wintergreen walks by, ignoring them, right as Jason’s eyes roll back and he lets out a pleased moan. He knows the spirit’s presence bothered him earlier but he can’t remember why now. In fact, he thinks as that fuzzy feeling eases the tension from his muscles, he kind of wants Wintergreen to come over here so he can suck his dick.

Nightwing chuckles behind him and somehow manages to fuck harder.

Jason’s mouth falls open. He’s panting and drooling and it’s so amazing, being used like this. He’d do anything to make Nightwing happy and he’s so fortunate that what makes Nightwing happy is something that also makes him happy. He could do this forever.

It may have been forever. Jason has lost all sense of time. So when Nightwing stills behind him he’s kind of disappointed. Disappointed the god is finished and disappointed that he didn’t really feel him finish. Only the knowledge that he’s so stuffed full of their come from before, that that’s the reason he doesn’t feel the hot splash he so wantonly craves, keeps him from whimpering his discontent.

Nightwing stays inside him as he reaches over Jason’s shoulder and retrieves the cup and the toy. Jason had completely forgotten about it, can’t remember why he didn’t want it, presses his ass back against Nightwing’s hips as close as he can. He wants it so badly now that he does let loose a desperate whine.

“Don’t worry, babe,” Nightwing laughs as he presses Jason as far down onto the table as possible so that his ass sticks up in the air and pulls out, “It’s coming. I knew you’d be all for this once we got started.”

The cool outline of the toy presses against him and it’s deliciously big. Jason has been plugged before—Dick had love the sight of it, the idea of his seed trapped inside—and he’d enjoyed it. But this isn’t like that at all. Jason feels every ridge and bump crafted into the outside of the glass tube as it’s slowly pushed in, stretching him wide even as his greedy hole sucks at it. When the flared base is resting snuggly against his ass he feels more exposed than ever and he starts trembling with how hot that makes him, how it sets his skin on fire.

He feels the rim of something else just beneath the toy, digging into his butt-cheeks. Then Nightwing’s hand is on his shoulder again, guiding him up, off the table, so that he’s kneeling upright.

Jason cries out in sublime ecstasy as he feels the come inside him flow out, through the hollow center of the toy. His own orgasm sends jets of white across his own abs and the table.

“ _Holy shit_ ,” is rumbled from somewhere behind him, too deep and gravelly to be Nightwing. It sounds more like Deathstoke but Jason’s far too exhausted to turn to look.

He sags against Nightwing’s warm, solid chest, trusting the god with his weight. His eyelids start to drop heavily as he follows that hazy feeling towards the bliss of sleep.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Nightwing hums against his neck, “Not this time, little wing.”

The groggy feeling recedes but the satisfied, fucked out, haze stays. He feels high. Jason sighs happily.

“I have one more thing I need you to do for me before I leave.” Nightwing’s voice is deeper, darker, something predatory along the edges. He shifts them both to the side, so that the god sits with legs straddling the bench and Jason is still kneeling on it, between Nightwing’s thighs, facing away from his god. When his eyes flutter open, he sees Deathstroke staring at him eyes wide, pupils blown, jaw clenched tight. Wintergreen is in his right peripheral, pretending not to notice.

Nightwing tightens his arm around Jason’s waist, pressing them together just the wrong side of too tight. Jason moans into it. Something scrapes up his abs but he can’t tear his eyes away from Deathstroke’s lustful gaze.

“ _Drink_ ,” Nightwing growls, pressing the rim of a cup to his lips.

Jason doesn’t hesitate, opens his mouth and lets Nightwing tip the contents of the glass onto his tongue, moans when he tastes smoke and chocolate, propellent and coffee. He tastes something more normal too, more human, salty… that must be what Nightwing scraped off his belly. He raises his hands to the cup so he can drink their come faster.

“Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Blasphemy, D?”

“ _Fuck._ It’s more than warranted.”

Jason licks his lips when he finishes and gives a drunken smile. He’s still exhausted, the heat from Nightwing making him want to sleep again.

When Nightwing moves to rise Deathstroke stops him with a nod to the table.

“Missed a little.”

Jason feels Nightwing shift him again, letting his feet drop to the floor so that he’s once again sitting on the bench facing the table.

“Just a few more drops, my little wing,” Nightwing whispers, nudging him forward towards a few stray drops of his own come.

Jason licks them up dutifully, dragging his tongue across the wood slowly. He feels a sense of pride at the shortness of the gods’ breath and a thrill when Nightwing mutters, “Good job, Jason. You’re so perfect, so beautiful, so incredible” and fingers trace the edge of the glass toy.

Jason whimpers and presses back into the touch. Nightwing chuckles again and it’s the most lovely sound in the world. Jason could drown in that sound.

“Later, my love,” he nips Jason’s ear, “I’m afraid we have responsibilities to see to.”

He guides Jason to lean against the table, whispers, “Leave it in until we return,” and then they’re gone.

And the warmth is gone.

And the haze is gone.

Jason can’t move from where he’s leaning. He starts shaking uncontrollably, squeezes his eyes shut, and manages to keep the tears he sheds in the single digits, as he focuses on his breathing. Long deep breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth, he _can’t_ have a panic attack here.

He hates this. He hates how weak he is, how small and insignificant. He hates that he’s an actual toy to them; that they can _make_ him play with them; that they can make him want them, even briefly. He wants to fight and kick and scream and curse but they drain that out of him just by entering the room as giants.

This _can’t_ be his life.

When the scrape of metal on wood next to his ear makes him flinch and finally sit up, he’s horrified to find that Wintergreen is still there, collecting the dishes, ignoring him.

He manages to weakly tug the discarded sheet up around his shoulders, pulling it tight, trying to curl in on himself. Humiliation is tearing him apart.

Deep breaths.

Yet, when Wintergreen finally moves toward the door, Jason finds he doesn’t really want to be left alone in this room… with nothing to do but wait.

Wintergreen stops with the door ajar and looks back at him with kind, understanding smile.

Jason misses Alfred again.

“I’m sorry,” Wintergreen starts and glances down at the sheet, “I’m going to have to take that too.”

Jason doesn’t think he’s physically or emotionally capable of untangling himself from the fabric and his breathing starts to come faster and shallower at the suggestion.

“Calm down,” Wintergreen rumbles softly, “You can keep it until we get there.”

Jason is instantly soothed at being able to hold onto it a bit longer but he blinks in confusion at the phrasing. Had he missed the spirit saying something to him?

Wintergreen motions out the door, “Would you like to bathe?”

Jason jumps up and hurries to the door without thinking. He’s never wanted anything more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [ScandalSavage Tumblr](https://scandalsavagefanfic.tumblr.com/)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jason gets some much needed space and meets some much needed allies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Giving poor little Jay a very small breather.

The moment the door closes behind him, Jason’s excitement for a shower is tempered by the reminder that this isn’t his house and he’s literally walking the halls of gods.

Wintergreen isn’t quite as inhumanly tall as Deathstroke or Nightwing but he’s still much closer to their size than Jason’s. So are the handful of, what Jason assumes, are other Spirits who cast curious looks at him as they pass by.

He pulls the sheet tighter around himself and tries to make himself as small as possible as he hurries to keep up with Wintergreen’s long strides.

Every time they pass someone, he’s hyperaware of how disgusting he is. The doctor in him is curious of the fact that it’s clear gods either naturally produce substantially more ejaculate than humans or can control the amount to suit their desire. Then the rest of him bitterly thinks that Deathstroke and Nightwing must desire sloppy pets. His skin and hair are still covered in it from the first two encounters and he feels what he didn’t fucking _drink_ dripping out of his propped-open ass down his thighs. He’s careful to rub them together as he walks to make sure he doesn’t leave a trail behind him for all the deities to see and hates both gods for making him feel this way.

The hollow toy exposing his insides to the world makes him feel even more vulnerable and small and… shamed.

Fortunately, the walk isn’t a long one.

Unfortunately, when Wintergreen opens the big wooden door and Jason’s eyes adjust to the dim, steamy room, his heart sinks. He is not getting a shower. And he isn’t getting any privacy.

The room’s main feature is a giant pool of clear water. He can’t see the far corners, of the bath or the room, through the mist rising off the hot water. The only people he sees are three women tangled together in the farther of the two corners he can see, but he can hear muttering bouncing off stone walls and they’re clearly not speaking so he knows there are others out of sight.

A hand rests softly on his shoulder and he can’t help the way the touch, any touch, makes him flinch.

“It’s this or nothing,” Wintergreen mutters quietly, careful to keep his voice from carrying.

Jason hesitates anyway. The redheaded woman is gazing at him and even though it’s more inquisitive than Nightwing’s or Deathstroke’s hungry looks he’s still wary.

Wintergreen moves in front of him and gently takes the fabric of the sheet from his death-grip without pulling it away.

Jason looks up at him.

“Some gods are kinder than others,” he whispers, “Stay near the door where those three can see you.”

He nods at the women and Jason glances back toward them. The redhead gives him a friendly, knowing, smile.

Wintergreen tugs the sheet away from him, pats his shoulder affectionately, before nudging him toward the bath and leaving.

Jason crosses his arms defensively and rubs his shoulders. As he creeps closer to the water, he is careful to avoid eye contact with the other occupants.

He steps into the water, down to the first step, and the level comes up just above midthigh. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to sit if he goes down any further so he moves a little to the right, a little farther away from the goddesses, and lets himself sink into the warmth.

Only to leap back up with a surprised yelp as he feels that warm water flood into his rectum.

He thinks, as he feels the water run back out of him, that it’d be so convenient if he could evaporate into the mist.

“You can take it out while you bathe.”

Jason looks over at the three women, all of them now watching him, and blushes. He’s been facing them the whole time. How can they know?

“What’re you talking about?” He asks, hoping maybe they mean anything else.

The redhead raises her eyebrows. The blonde to the left chuckles out loud. The brunette on the right just narrows her sharp eyes… like she sees something the others can’t.

“The… gift, Nightwing gave you,” the blonde laughs impishly.

The redhead nudges her companion with an elbow while Jason cringes and flushes, warm and red, with embarrassment.

“Now, now, Spoiler,” she admonishes, “It’s unseemly to take joy in another’s discomfort.”

Red looks back to Jason. “But that was what I was talking about. You can remove it while you bathe if you wish. We won’t tell them.”

She gives him another friendly smile and Jason narrows his eyes at her. He’s not about to trust the word of a deity just because of a nice smile. Not again. He learns his lessons quickly.

“Your caution is understandable, given… everything. It’s up to you,” she shrugs, “We’re very good at keeping secrets.”

The brunette smirks.

Finally, Jason pieces together who they are. He blames… everything, for not having realized earlier.

“You—you’re the Font,” he breaths, a little awestruck despite himself.

“Oracle,” the redhead introduces, “Goddess of Intelligence. And my better… thirds: Spoiler, Goddess of Whispers and Orphan, Goddess of Secrets.”

Together they make up the Font of Knowledge. There’s debate between theologians on whether their son, the God of Wisdom, is part of the Font or a product of it. Jason always thought it was a pointless, academic discussion. Regardless, they’re quietly one of the most powerful entities in the pantheon. The gods know a lot more than mortals. But the Font? Between them they know _everything_.

They’re not his patron gods, although he prayed to them and their son plenty while he was in med school, but he’s always been a big fan.

And right now he’s not overly fond of his patron god.

Jason shuffles his feet a little. He can’t stand the idea of sitting back in the water with that stupid ‘plug’ holding him open and he really does want to take it out, even believes that the goddesses won’t tell Nightwing. But…

Orphan taps Oracle on the shoulder to get her attention. She doesn’t say anything, not aloud, just nods towards him.

“Oh,” Oracle laughs and looks back at him, “We don’t get out much so we’re pretty unfamiliar with the practical applications of the human concepts of shame and embarrassment. Would you like us to close our eyes?”

Jason glares at her. “Bet that all-knowing thing gets annoying real fast.”

He claps a hand to his mouth as the goddess’s eyes widen in surprise. Spoiler looks delighted, like she’s a moment away from bursting out laughing. Orphan just smiles at him.

“I—I’m so sorry,” he apologizes quickly, raising his hands, “I—I didn’t mean to… it just came out… I—”

“Jason,” Oracle soothes, “It’s fine. We’re not so insecure in our godhood that we can’t take a little mocking.”

“Unlike some douchebags,” Spoiler mutters, plenty loud enough to be heard.

Jason smiles and snorts. Then he’s surprised that he is even still capable of smiling, let alone laughing.

There’s pity in their eyes when he looks back to them and he’s overcome with the desire to ask if they can send him home. But he doesn’t know if he could handle hearing the rejection.

“Sorry, sweetie,” Spoiler says kindly, “There’s a code amongst the gods, keeps us from warring with each other, we all respect it… we can’t help you like that.”

“But we _can_ help you,” Oracle grins.

Orphan wades up to him. The water is up to her shoulders in the deepest part of the bath and the closer she gets the clearer it is that she’s going to be face to face with his crotch. He instinctively covers his genitals with his hands.

She smiles. When she reaches him, she gently pulls one of his hands away and he freezes, blood running cold, terrified of where this is going.

But all she does his turn his palm up and rest her own over it.

Suddenly there’s a weight in his hand and relief floods the muscles of his ass as he’s no longer forced open.

Orphan winks at him and swims back to her companions.

“Now you can blame us if you have to. _You_ didn’t take it out, so you didn’t disobey,” Spoiler clarifies.

Jason sets the toy on the ledge without a second glance, not taking his eyes off of them.

“Why?” he demands. Maybe it’s because they’ve treated him normal, with the base level of respect Jason feels is due all creatures, but he’s feeling a little more like himself around them. He’s also not about to trust them any deeper than surface level. “Why would you help me?”

Orphan and Spoiler give him twin sad smiles.

“Well, for one,” Oracle says, “I like to mess with Nightwing. It’s one my great joys in life. But mostly? Because not all of the gods think that humans exist solely for our amusement. You’re a sentient being with the cognitive ability to analyze the information you have, make your own choices, and handle whatever comes of those decisions.”

Her gaze darkens in irritation. “The Font put a lot of effort into human agency. It’s our best work. We’re not fond of when the gods steal it.”

Jason stares at them in silence for a long moment. He’s getting the impression that there’s some political and ideological differences in the heavens that threaten to set them at each other’s throats and that peace teeters precariously on this ‘code’ they’ve agreed to. He remembers the stories of gods at war with each other. Those were dark days.

He clears his throat.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

With that, he takes a deep breath, and immediately submerges himself completely. He scrubs his hands through his hair on the first breath, scrubs everything else raw on the second. He looks around for soap when he comes up for air. When he doesn’t find any it occurs to him that maybe he’s the only person here who needs to use the bath to actually get clean.

He doesn’t look at the glass tube as he sits down and leans back against the wall, letting the warm water wash over him. He already feels better. Being treated like a person. A little kindness. No more crusted come and grime. He closes his eyes and tries to relax. He’s been tense for days, even before he was kidnapped, nerves about asking Dick to leave his country and—

No. He’s done thinking about that.

“So, Jason, tell us about yourself,” he hears Oracle suggest.

He cracks his eyes open. He’d almost forgotten they were there.

“Don’t you know everything about me already?”

Oracle ignores the pointed look Spoiler and Orphan give each other. Jason isn’t sure what to make of that.

“If we only talked about things we didn’t know, we’d never speak.”

Jason nods. Then hesitates.

“Uh… what—”

“Just start at the beginning. Where are you from?”

“Oh, uh, I’m from Gotham—”

“Ugh, that place is a dump,” Spoiler interjects.

“Yeah,” Jason laughs a little, “I guess it’s kind of an acquired taste. But it’s home, you know?”

Oracle hums and wraps an arm around Spoiler’s shoulders pulling her close. Orphan snuggles into her other arm.

Jason smiles at them. Then frowns to himself.

“I guess I’m never going to see it again, huh?” he asks quietly, looking away from them, “Gotham. My friends…”

He thinks about that cute detective from several years ago. They’d only gone out a few times before work, then the war, had made life more complicated. He wonders if things would have been different if they’d had a chance to get involved, if he still would have met Dick. If he’d be here now.

When he looks back up the goddesses are smiling. Spoiler is grinning ear to ear like she just heard the best news of her life. They’d been pretty supportive so it’s an unexpected reaction to his obvious distress. Still, Jason doesn’t fully trust them.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Oracle says quickly, “I’m sorry. We see and hear so much, even when it’s not in front of us. Makes speaking with us awkward for many as we often respond to things others can’t see or hear.”

Jason is unconvinced. They’d been looking right at him.

Before he can say anything, their expressions change, and his head is jerked back by his hair until it smacks into the ground. His body flounders in the water with his neck arched over the ledge of the bath. His hands fly up to grip at the wrist of the person holding him down. His first thought was that it was Deathstroke but the wrist is too thin.

Then a terrifying white face with a too large smile and acid green eyes pops into sight.

“Hello, birdie,” the God of Death sings gleefully at him.

“Joker,” Oracle sighs in exasperation, “Let him go. He’s a mortal, they get hurt if you bang their heads into stones.”

Spoiler and Orphan are scowling at the god in distaste.

The grip tightens.

“I said ‘hello,’” he pouts at Jason, “It’s soooo rude not to say it back.”

“He—hello,” Jason grinds out through a clenched jaw. He knows death is a natural part of life and all that but the God of Death has always creeped him out.

“There you go, baby!” Joker exclaims loudly, “That wasn’t so hard was it?”

“Joker—” Oracle starts again.

“I heard you, darling, he’s mortal. Handle with care. Fragile. This side up. Got it.”

Joker’s laugh is more of a cackle and even the goddesses cringe at the sound.

But Jason freezes as that laugh echoes off the walls of the bath, multiplying.

Now he does panic. His breath comes in short bursts and he’s trying to pry the long, slim fingers out of his hair so he can get away.

“What’s the matter, sweetheart? You’re the talk of the town! I know we met already, but I wanted to _officially_ introduce myself.”

Joker leans even closer. So close his breath puffs into Jason’s face, hot and smelling of rot.

“No,” Jason cries out, thrashing in the grip as the memory of his dream, of that vivid, too real nightmare, washes over him. That laugh, the smell… he shouldn’t know it, shouldn’t recognize it, there’s no way he could unless…

“Aw,” Joker sulks, “And I thought we bonded last night.” He frowns, expression getting thoughtful. “I thought after such a beautiful _lovemaking_ you’d be madly in love with me and ready to ditch Dumb and Brutish.”

Jason fights harder at the mention of whatever had happened in the darkness of that dream. He’d certainly never call it _lovemaking_. Maybe ‘torture.’

“What?!” Spoiler’s surprise and disgust are clear in her voice.

“Joker!” Oracle warns, voice firm and dripping with authority, “You’re overstepping. You know the rules about mortals—”

“Oh, come now, Misses All-Knowing,” Joker scorns, “If _I_ know, you know.”

“You _think_ you know much more than you do,” Oracle counters, “Release the human.”

He untangles his fist from Jason’s hair and Jason doesn’t waste any time swimming much nearer to the goddesses for whatever limited protection they can or will give.

The goddesses and the God of Death glare at each other across the water until a voice from the entrance interrupts.

“Mothers?”

“That’s my cue, I think,” Joker cackles again, “I’ll catch you later, birdie.”

He waves a pale hand over his shoulder as he shoves past the newcomer.

Jason squeezes his eyes closed, buries his face in his hands, and tries to bring his breathing back under control, tries to get a grip. It was a dream. God’s can probably see your dreams if they want.

A small, soft hand rubs soothing circles into his back, up by his shoulder blades and he leans into it without thinking. He’d ended up by Orphan, knows it’s her gentle, platonic, touch.

“Hate that guy,” the new comer mutters, just loud enough to be heard, then in a normal volume, “Nightstar said you were—”  

“Just a moment, sweetheart,” Oracle says.

Fingers brush Jason’s knee under the water to get his attention before Spoiler asks, “Are you alright?”

He just nods, face still safe from view behind his hands. If this keeps up, the stress is going to make his stay amongst the gods a short one.

“Did you see Joker last night?” Oracle’s tone is comforting. He feels Orphan stiffen at his side and it occurs to him that maybe the Goddess of Secrets doesn’t share everything immediately with her wives. _Between_ them they know everything.

“In—in a dream,” he manages to whisper past his fingers.

“Jason,” Oracle says _very_ gently, “I’m so sorry, but… the only time people dream of gods is when the god _visits_ the person. It was a dream but… it was also real.”

Jason takes a deep breath and lets his hands fall into the water with a splash.

“Of course it was,” he says dryly, “If the waking hours are nightmares, why would the nightmares be any different?”

“Holy shit! _Jason_?”

Jason looks up at the man who had walked in when Joker left and squints a little through the steam.

It takes him moment. It’s been years.

“Tim?”

Tim gapes at him. And Jason stares back, equally dumbfounded. But then Tim looks away to the goddesses...

He’d called them ‘mothers.’

_Tim_ is the God of Wisdom?

Jason’s mind reels. Dick _and_ Tim? That can’t be a random coincidence can it?

“What have you done?” he hears Tim hiss at the goddesses.

His mothers.

Jason can’t process all of this.

“We didn’t do anything,” Oracle replies calmly, “Nightwing brought him here.”

“Deathstroke,” Jason croaks in correction. Orphan starts rubbing his back again.

“Sure sweetie,” Spoiler pacifies. Jason’s still staring at Tim, trying to recall every detail of their short acquaintance so he doesn’t spare any brain power for the implication Spoiler just made.

Jason didn’t usually ask people out. Despite his easy confidence in his profession, he was always kind of nervous and unsure about dating. But he’d managed to ask out the detective who’d come to him for a medical opinion on a case. It hadn’t been a whirlwind of passion like with Dick, but Jason had enjoyed their quiet, relaxed dates.

“Joker knows.”

“Joker _thinks_ he knows.”

“Nightwing doesn’t.”

“I’d rather it be the other way around.”

“Well, yeah.”

“Should we tell—”

“You know the rules.”

“Yeah but…”

“Tim. The code is there for a reason. Don’t break it.”

Jason is vaguely aware of the conversation going on around him. He should probably pay more attention to it, but he’s preoccupied questioning everything he thought he ever knew. Questioning his entire life.

“So…” He starts tentatively, and they all stop talking and look at him, “You’re not actually a detective?”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took SO long!

“You’re staring, Jason,” Tim says, smiling at him without looking up to his face.

Jason’s so used to the gods being taller than him that, when he got out of the water and reached for the towel Tim held out to him, he was surprised to have to look down into sharp, stony eyes.

“You’re… short,” Jason says dumbly. He rolls his eyes at his lack of eloquence.

“I thought you’d be more comfortable if I was the way you remember me,” Tim explains.

They’re walking slowly down the hall. Back towards Nightwing’s and Deathstroke’s rooms, he notes with an odd sense of resignation, bordering on apathy. That cold, hollow feeling scares him more than anything so far. It’s very unlike him and he doesn’t want to let this place change him.

Then again, apparently Nightwing and Deathstroke like the things that makes him himself. Maybe, if he lets these experiences make him meek and frightened and uncaring, they’ll let him go home.

The towel Tim has given him is big and warm, like it’d been toasted, and he’s still got it wrapped around his waist.

Tim had also produced, seemingly from thin air, a fluffy white bathrobe. He’d tucked Jason into it, frowning at the purple and red bruises in the shapes of fingers and teeth scattered over Jason’s body. He hadn’t even noticed them. Not that he’d had any opportunity to see himself. If there are mirrors here, he hasn’t noticed one.

Jason hasn’t worn clothing in days. Days during which so much has happened, so much has changed, that the light brush of sleeves already feels foreign to him, like he’s never worn clothes before in his life.

He hugs the fabric closer. Then glances at Tim.

“So…” Jason starts slowly, “You’re a god…”

Tim at least has the decency to look a little guilty. He actually blushes and Jason can’t help the amused smile that springs to his lips.

A thought occurs to him.

“What’s you’re real name?” Jason asks, suddenly curious. The God of Wisdom is only ever referred to as that. Or either Sophia when depicted as female, or Phronesis when depicted as male. Unlike all the other deities, Wisdom was considered more passive, a quiet, unassuming presence, elusive and unknowable.

Tim’s blush deepens. Jason thinks it’s kind of adorable. And he gets a little rush from embarrassing a god.

“It’s Tim,” he answers shortly, “One of my mothers thought it would be funny.”

Jason snorts. “Spoiler?”

Tim scowls cutely. “Yes.”

The silence that spreads between them is surprisingly comfortable. It’s not because Tim is smaller than him, although that certainly feels a lot less threatening right now, but he definitely feels at least a modicum of peace in this god’s presence.

However, he has a lot of questions for Tim. Finding out Dick is Nightwing was… insane. Jason still hasn’t really had a chance to deal with it, hasn’t had more than a few moments to himself to get his thoughts in order.

But finding out he’s dated not one but _two_ gods? That _Tim_ , reserved, clever, humble almost to the point of self-deprecating _Tim_ , who he met years ago while still in Gotham, is also a powerful deity?

They say two is a coincidence. It’s just…  this feels too big to be chance.

“Why a detective?”

It looks like Tim tenses a little and he takes a long moment to consider his answer.

“I’ve been a lot of things over the… centuries,” he smirks, “By nature I _know_ all, but knowing isn’t experiencing and experiencing is useful for understanding. And my goal is understanding the human experience. The detective was just another stop along that journey.”

Jason narrows his eyes. He doesn’t know Tim that well, so he doesn’t really know why he suspects that Tim isn’t telling him the whole truth.

“There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”

Tim’s smirk turns into an oddly sad smile, “Yes, there is.”

“And you’re not going to tell me?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Ok then,” Jason twists the robe between his fingers self-consciously, “Why’d you go out with me?”

Tim gives him a funny look. “You asked.”

Jason raises an eyebrow, “That’s it? Just because I asked? You go out with everyone who asks you?”

“You’d be surprised how few ask. I’m not like some of the other gods. My…” he pauses, looking of the right word, ”aura? Vibe? It’s not particularly inviting to mortals. You’re the first human to ever approach me.”

 _That_ reignites the icy, creeping feeling that this is more than happenstance.

“What’s wrong with me?” He asks softly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his robe.

Tim starts. “What? Nothing’s wrong with you. Why would you think that?”

“You _and_ Dick—fuck..” he scrubs his hand over face, he really wants to stop saying that name. “Sorry… Nightwing. He said he was drawn to me, you say I’m the _only_ human ever, in thousands of years, to ask you out? It’s just… too much.”

Tim’s keen eyes stay on Jason’s face as they walk. The gaze makes squirm in his skin.

“Sorry. I’m just tired. I’m tired… and I want to go home. I miss my apartment, my friends, the hospital, Gotham and her grime. Even Bruce. We had a big fight right before I left and now…” Jason’s breath hitches and he lets his shoulders slump and his chin drop to his chest, “They’re all going to think I died in the war.”

When he looks up, Tim’s nose is scrunched and his lips are pursed in a grimace for just a moment before it smoothes back into something kind and sympathetic.

“I wish there was something I could say. But I know there are no words that can bring you comfort.”

He puts a hand on Jason’s shoulder as they continue walking. And _that_ is actually comforting.

“Uh, Tim?”

“Hmm?”

“Your mom, Oracle, she said—“ he swallows, this could be awkward, and even though he likes Tim, knows him a little… he thought he knew Nightwing too, so he’s unsure how the deity will react. “She said that… when people dream about gods—“

Tim stops in his tracks.

When Jason notices and turns back toward him Tim is looking at the floor, face fallen in guilt.

“I’m so sorry, Jason. I got carried away and—we shouldn’t have… I shouldn’t have even been there. I just… well, there’s no excuse.”

Jason’s brows come together at Tim’s sincerity. He’s taken aback by an apologetic deity. Especially since, if his memory of the dream is correct (and he’s pretty sure it’s physically seared onto his brain), Tim doesn’t really have anything to apologize for… unlike certain other gods.

“You don’t have, like, memory altering powers or something, do you?” He asks thinking of Di—Nightwing’s pleasure-override… thing, and mostly holding back the way it makes his skin crawl.

“No,” Tim answers slowly, cocking his head.

“Then there’s nothing to be sorry about.”

Tim blinks up at him in confusion.

“All you did was say you regretted we didn’t get to know each other better. That you had to go,” Jason sighs, “Pretty sure I’m the one who pushed you down and climbed on top you.”

The wicked little smirk that tugs at Tim’s mouth looks much less contrite.

“So you’re fine,” Jason laughs, “It’s not like you forced me to—”

The rest of the joke dies on the tip of his tongue. He swallows the words past the lump in his throat. The small bit of peace he’d found washed away as he looks up at the pale blue and orange swirls on the white door they’ve stopped beside.

Jason doesn’t realize he has started shaking until Tim squeezes his hand.

He manages to pull his gaze away from the door, dropping them to Tim’s boots.

“Please,” the word is broken, weak, an outward projection of how he feels on the inside, “Please, Tim… don’t—”

 _Don’t what?_ He thinks. Don’t leave me here? Don’t make me go back in there? Don’t go?

It’s been made clear to him that the other deities can’t help him, even if they might want to. He’s still just a single little human. The god’s watch mortals suffer and die by the millions, through thousands of years. He knows the discomfort of one little man isn’t worth civil war in the heavens. Not that Jason gives two shits about the gods. But even the most minor skirmishes between deities are inevitably bad news for people.

And no matter what Nightwing says, Jason _doesn’t_ hate people.

Suddenly Tim is hugging him. He’s a little taller now, so he doesn’t have to lean up to whisper into Jason’s ear, “I’m going to do what I can, Jason. There are things you don’t know… things that make it complicated. But I’m going to try.”

He gives Jason a gentle, platonic kiss on his forehead and pulls away.

Jason’s desire to run must be horribly obvious as he glances up and down the hall because Tim squeezes his hand again and the regret is clear in his voice as he says quietly, “The only way in or out is by the will of a god. I’m so sorry.”

Tim releases his hand and takes a step back.

“I can visit you,” he says, almost tentatively, “If you’d like. I can return tomorrow. Check up on you.”

Jason swallows to get the moisture back in his throat but even then, he can’t get any words to come out.

So he just nods.

Tim smiles at him. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jay.”

And between blinks he gone.

Jason stares at the door for a minute and considers picking a direction and trying to run anyway.

But he knows that’s useless. Just prolonging the inevitable.

It’s only been a couple of hours. Maybe they’re not back yet.

He takes a deep breath, steeling himself, turns the handle, and walks through the door.

Jason hears them before he sees them, half hidden on the far side of one of the pillars.

Deathstroke‘s deep grunts and Nightwing’s breathy gasps make the air feel thicker, like Jason’s trying to inhale liquid.

He’s frozen to the spot he stopped, just a few steps into the room. He tries not to move, to even breathe, as he all but prays they don’t notice him, not a single doubt in his mind that they’ll drag him into it if they see him, until he figures out what to do.

No sooner has he finished the thought than Deathstroke’s eye finds him and the god’s lips curl up into a mean grin. His next thrust is harder and Nightwing moans.

Jason turns and lunges for the door. Only, this time when he pulls on the handle it doesn’t budge. He tries to rip it open as Deathstroke’s low, rumbling chuckle vibrates into his soul.

Jason sags against the wood, eyes closed tight, breathing shallow as he tries to convince himself that it’s ok, he’ll be ok. It’s happened before and it’s going to keep happening and there’s nothing he can do about it. He _must_ find a way to cope with this or he’ll lose his mind.

He hears Nightwing muttering, begging, pleas for Deathstroke to ‘fill him up’ and ‘claim him’.

However he’s so focused on managing his own internal crisis that he doesn’t notice when the noises reach a crescendo, then cease.

He’s still leaning against the cool wood of the door for support, something to ground him, when a gruff voice, too close for comfort, growls, “Where did you get the robe?” as a broad palm slides up his back and grabs at the neck.

Before he has the chance to answer, the fabric is unceremoniously ripped off of him.

He yelps as his arms are jerked back with the garment and whimpers when the towel falls to the floor, jostled loose with the jarring movements.

One big hand shoves him against the door hard enough to knock the air from him. What little is left leaves in a rush when the other hand rubs at his hole.

Jason swears at himself as he realizes he’s forgotten to—

“Where’s your gift?” Deathstroke growls into his ear, shoving a dry finger into him making Jason choke, “Didn’t Nightwing tell you to leave it in until we returned?”

The god’s teeth clamp down on his ear hard and he cries out.

“Jay, you took it out?” Nightwing sounds hurt and offended.

Jason allows himself a smile at that before he answers. He’ll take whatever small satisfaction he can get.

“No,” he ends up gasping as Deathstroke pushes his finger deeper and hits his prostate, “Not—not me…”

“You let someone else touch you?!”

With the side of his face pressed against the door, he’s so fucking grateful that Nightwing has moved into his limited field of vision because the shocked, scandalized, _jealous_ look that twists his beautiful features gives Jason’s another brief sense of gratification. Before rage and indignation take over

“‘ _Let_ ’?” Jason snarls, “In case it isn’t clear, _dick_ hole, I’m not exactly capable of stopping a god from touching me if _you_ want to— _ah hah—_ ,” Deathstroke adds a second finger and curls them up, hooking inside Jason and pulling him away from the door by his hole before throwing him further into the room.

Jason stumbles and crashes to the hard marble floor.

“Gods, D, can you be just a little less vicious?”

“He disobeyed you. He’ll need to be punished.”

Jason’s blood turns to ice and he feels cold terror rush down his spine. He doesn’t know if that means a beating or something sexual or some horrifying combination. All he knows is that he can’t even handle when they’re being… affectionate, for lack of a better word. He thinks whatever the ‘punishment’ ends up being, it’ll destroy him.

“No, wait! I didn’t touch it. No one touched me. The Font— they just… it was… it was… there and then it was in my hand.”

“Oracle,” Nightwing grumbles and rolls his eyes.

Deathstroke crosses his arms over his broad chest and smirks wickedly at his husband. “I told you that one wasn’t worth the trouble she’d cause you afterward.”

Nightwing scowls back but doesn’t argue.

Deathstroke strides forward, stopping a foot away from where Jason lay sprawled on the floor.

“Fine. No punishment,” he rumbles. Jason feels so small and insignificant as the god towers over him, staring down with that same mean smirk, “Roll over. Get on your hands and knees.”

Jason gulps. He tries to stop himself from trembling but fails. He can’t move again.

Deathstroke’s smile widens. “Are you going to _disobey_ me, kid?”

The threat of discipline jolts Jason out of his stupor. He moves slowly, trying to take deep, steadying breaths but each one is too ragged to bring him any calm.

He squeezes his eyes shut when he’s on all fours as directed. Waiting for the touch is worse than the touch itself and the longer he waits the more anxious he gets.

“Put your face on the floor. Keep your ass up the air, nice and high for me.”

This time Jason sobs but moves to obey immediately. The humiliation, knowing Nightwing is standing there, not doing anything, that they’re both watching him…

If this is going to be the rest of his life he’d rather just die now.

“Good boy,” Deathstroke says, voice husky with want, “Now reach back and hold yourself open so we can get a good look at you.”

He digs his teeth into his lower lip as he pulls at his cheeks with shaky hands, exposing himself for the two deities.

It’s ok, he tells himself. He can get through this. Tim said he’d help. Jason can handle this until Tim finds a way. He can survive this. He will.

“Hmm,” Deathstroke hums darkly, hungrily, “You should see yourself. All those lovely muscles tensed up, trembling so hard it looks like you’ll shake off your pretty, flushed skin, already shiny with sweat. But the best part?” A big thumb presses over his entrance, pushing down but not dipping inside, “Your tiny little human hole, puffy and bruised red from being fucked raw by _your gods_.”

The thumb leaves and is almost immediately replaced but the wide, blunt head of Deathstroke’s massive cock.

“I want to hear you, Jason,” Deathstroke rumbles in his ear, “Pray to me. Pray for _your god_ to fuck you into the stone. Beg me for it, hard and deep. Tell me to take my time.”

Tears start streaming down Jason’s face again but he hardly notices them anymore.

“Give me this, kid. Or I’ll take it anyway and punish you for disobeying a god.”

Jason is pretty sure the chocked, despondent tone is clear, even in the prayer he thinks at the deity, word for word as directed.

_Please, Lord, fuck me into the stone. I need you, hard, deep, for as long as you want me._

Jason feels like he’s going to be sick. He can’t help himself from praying, to no one in particular, that ‘deep’ doesn’t mean the thing from the first time.

“Good,” Deathstroke mutters again as he grips Jason’s hips and shoves inside.

He does exactly as he said. He drives into Jason, hips thrusting forward while pulling Jason back, harder than ever before. And slower. His cock hits the back of Jason’s rectum every. Single. Time. Mercifully it doesn’t go any further. But it is _wide_. Jason’s stretched uncomfortably around the huge girth, it fills ever millimeter of his passage.

His tears drip onto the cool marble beneath him. He feels fingers in his hair and that silky, sickening warmth.

“No,” he says, proud of how firm he manages to sound, “Don’t. Don’t want your fucking magic shit.”

There’s a brief hesitation before the hazy heat recedes, “Whatever you want, little wing.”

Jason snorts but doesn’t say any of the scathing things that come immediately to mind.

True to his word, Deathstroke takes his time. It goes on for _so_ long. Eventually Jason hears Nightwing start moving around the room, doing random things. He nearly falls asleep at one point, until Deathstroke smacks his ass hard enough to bruise.

All he can do is lie there as he’s used. For hours.

Finally, the pace increases for a few minutes, becomes greedy and harsh until Jason feels the horribly familiar sensation of a ridiculous amount of warm come flood into him, fill him, drip out of him after Deathstroke pulls out, and continue to spill onto his ass and run down his back.

This time his exhaustion feels like a regular ache in his body. It’s painful and bone-deep and he still can’t move. But at least it doesn’t leave that cold, empty feeling behind like the magic lust haze.

He’s picked up gently and carefully tucked into the bed. He feels the two gods crawl in on either side of him. He doesn’t have the energy to worry or care about the hard press of their erections against him.

“I see what you mean, my love. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of him,” Deathstroke’s voice is oddly fond.

Jason’s pretty sure he hates it but they’re warm around him and the slight pressure from their bodies being slotted together snuggly like puzzle pieces is almost… soothing.

“Right?” Nightwing yawns and cuddles a little closer, “He’s perfect. And he’ll realized it. Mortals just need time to adjust.”

“Hmm. You know better than I would.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [my Tumblr](https://scandalsavagefanfic.tumblr.com/)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things take a turn. A weird one. Jason is just more and more confused. At least he isn't the only one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [My Tumblr](https://scandalsavagefanfic.tumblr.com/)

They rouse him once, in the middle of the night, for round two.

Jason’s so tired, so worn out, physically, mentally, emotionally… he doesn’t have the will to fight, he doesn’t have the energy to be afraid. He feels like everything has been twisted like a wet cloth and wrung out. And in his exhaustion he decides to try to… enjoy himself.

He has control of his own mind. Nightwing seems to have taken the hint about the magic. He tries to keep himself from imagining Tim because, while he’s pretty sure daydreams don’t count as dreams (since a person usually has a lot more control over them), he’s pretty apprehensive about… everything.

He fails. Partly because the only other person who keeps popping into his head is Dick. And that’s not helping him get over it.

The problem is, they’re being much gentler. Almost… sweet. They press soft, warm kisses on his eyelids, his nose, cheeks, ears, chin. They continue kissing down his neck, his shoulders, his chest. He can’t help but gasp and thread his fingers into Nightwing’s hair as the god gently sucks on his nipple. Deathstroke’s fingers follow just behind his lips, sliding lightly down Jason’s sides, across his shoulder blades, along his spine, but never venture below the small of his back.

His cock is swallowed by wet, velvet heat, so familiar he chokes a little and moans as his hips twitch into the talented mouth.

Jason, hot and exhausted, forgets himself.

“ _Dick_ ,” he breathes on the end of a moan and the start of a pleasured sob, “ _Gods, Dick… I love you… so much…_ ”

Dick’s pleased hum reverberates up his cock, spreads across his belly, up to his chest, and settles in his heart.

The mouth pulls off of him just long enough for Dick to purr up at him, “I love you too, Jason. So much. You’ll never know the true depths of it. Even I don’t know how or why. I just know that I do. I love you more than anything.”

Then he’s back, sucking at the head of Jason’s dick, prodding the tip with his tongue, wrapping his lips around his teeth and biting down just enough to intensify the pressure… all exactly the way Jason likes it.

He’s crying out in minutes, coming hard, shuddering as he feels Dick’s throat work to drink his release.

Jason feels boneless. Blissed out.

“Jay?”

“Hmm?” is all he can manage as his lids start to feel heavy.

“May we… may we fuck you… please?”

Jason’s eyes fly open, the _request_ prying him back to reality. He stares up at Nightwing— _not_ Dick—in utter shock.

“Wh—what?” he asks, astonished. There is no way he heard that correctly.

Their fingertips are still lightly caressing his skin but no one has gone for his ass, or shoved their cock in his mouth, and they had waited for him to lean into them before they did anything more than pepper his face with chaste little kisses. He realizes that this is the first time they’ve tried to pleasure _him_.

They _have_ been unusually tender and… respectful.

Relatively.

Nightwing gazes back at him earnestly, eyes wide in the moonlight.

“We want to make love to you, little wing,” Nightwing implores quietly, fingers tracing little circles on Jason’s collarbone, “We know we’ve been demanding. But we want you to want us to.”

Jason is too surprised to even snort or huff at the idea that he would _ever_ want them to touch him. He just stares into navy blue eyes made black by the night, not even breathing.

Nightwing lets him work through it, just regards him calmly, like he didn’t just do something so drastically out of character that it gave Jason whiplash.

Finally, Jason swallows and wets his lips. “If—if I say ‘no’—”

Deathstroke gives a little growl behind him but doesn’t say anything. His hand has stilled between Jason’s shoulder blades.

“If you say ‘no’ we’ll pull the covers back up and go back to sleep.”

Jason searches his face for the lie.

All he finds is Dick’s passionate sincerity.

He swallows but it does nothing to bring any moisture back into his dry throat. He doesn’t trust this for a moment. But either way, there is only one answer.

“No,” he rasps shortly, voice shaky, eyes locked on Nightwing’s.

The god’s face falls almost imperceptibly in disappointment. The hand on his back leaves and Deathstroke wraps his arm around Jason’s waist and tugs him back against him.

Jason cringes as he feels Deathstroke’s cock press against his ass. He knew it was an empty gesture.

But then nothing happens. Deathstroke settles his chin on top of Jason’s head. Nightwing smiles at Jason and lies back down, tangling Jason and the other deity in a mess of limbs, pressing his forehead to Jason’s chest.

It takes Jason a lot longer than usual to fall back to sleep as his mind whirls, trying to process this sudden change in behavior.

Eventually the heat from the much larger bodies lull him back into a deep slumber

 

* * *

 

“Seriously?”

“Very much so.”

“You’re sure?”

“On the off chance that the perfect memory of an immortal god wasn’t enough to convince you, I did double check with Wintergreen and Adeline. They confirmed it.”

Deathstroke’s usual growl is raspy and hushed as he whispers with his husband in the cold grey of the early morning, as though they are trying not to wake him. But Jason felt the warmth of them, and the weight of their presence, leave when they vacated the bed. By the time he pulled his consciousness back from his mercifully dreamless sleep, they were already deep in conversation.

Jason keeps his breath even and his eyes closed. They are obviously discussing something they don’t want him to know about.

“That is… unusual,” Nightwing responds softly.

“‘Unusual’ is you spending more than a couple weeks with a human lover,” Deathstroke argues, “My slaughtering a hand-full of common criminals on the whims of a child is more than ‘unusual’.”

“It wasn’t exactly a ‘whim’ though. He prayed to you—“

“Yes, he prayed. And I _felt compelled_ to answer that prayer. With all the gory violence the kid envisioned. You should have seen what I did to those pricks.” He sighs, frustrated. “Nightwing, I get thousands of prayers just like that everyday from people who want vengeance on those who harm them. But that’s not my job. Justice is the Bat’s territory and I steer clear of any path that might cause more confusion between us.”

Jason can hear the distaste in Deathstroke’s tone and distantly wonders if Nightwing has as much disdain for Kal-El as the war god has for the Bat.

“And you, also, felt the _urge_ to answer when he called.”

“His voice _was_ clearer and louder than any other…”

“And we’ve both become… attached. Very strongly and very quickly. To a mortal. This isn’t ‘unusual’, N. This is unprecedented. What the hell is going on?”

Jason swallows silently. They’re talking about him, about the prayers he made as a child, asking Deathstroke to take bloody vengeance on the men who’d hurt him. Jason had never thought for a moment that his prayers had been answered.

That means Deathstroke…

A memory surfaces, unbidden and brutal.

He’s skinny. Too skinny. He’s 10? 11? Maybe 12? He can’t remember. For too many years it didn’t matter and he never kept track. What he does know is that he’s starving and hiding in the narrow space between a dumpster and a wall, crying as silently as possible. He was already cold but now his clothes are torn, his hands are shaking, knuckles white, as they hold up his jeans with a death grip, the button and zipper on his already baggy pants broken. He shivers and wiggles deeper into his hiding place while the man who had shoved him over a crate and forced himself into him runs shrieking down the alley kicking over bins, looking for him while he bleeds from where Jason had stabbed his knife into the man’s hip.  

He squeezes his eyes shut and clasps his hands together, hugging his knees close enough to rest his head against them while he prays fervently.

_Deathstroke… please… help me. Please kill that fucker. I know it’s not usually your thing but, gods, please… just this once… I… I need to get outta here…_

The man continues looking for him, throwing things, tearing through the trash, until eventually he moves into the badly lit end of the alley. Jason loses sight as the asshole wanders into the shadows but he can still hear the man growling, “I’m gonna fucking rip you apart you little shit.”

Out of nowhere there’s high pitched, pained scream. It lasts for only a moment before it’s followed by unbearably still silence.

Jason doesn’t dare move from his hiding place. The man could be faking. He could have just taken the knife out. Maybe he was just bitten by a feral cat or a rat.

As the minutes tick by, never once does it cross his mind that the God of War may have answered his prayers.

He hears the hard heels of a dress shoe click on concrete from the alley’s opening. The noise must have drawn the attention of a passerby.

Jason holds his breath as a man with broad shoulders covered in a fancy brown wool coat enters his vision, head turning to look around the grungy area.

He whimpers, quietly, at the thought of curling up in that coat and feeling warm again, for the first time in… gods only know how long.

He shrinks back when the man turns to look at him. He could kick himself for making even such a small sound.

But the man’s smile is soft, his sky blue eyes full of kindness. The expression is so alien to Jason, softness, kindness… they haven’t been a part of his life for years… it takes him a moment to register that someone is looking at him, not with pity or lust or disgust, but with good intent, with compassion.

“It’s ok, son, I’m not going to hurt you,” the voice is a low rumble that, despite Jason’s best efforts to extinguish it, makes him feel… safe. “I heard a commotion and—“

Those sharp eyes scan Jason’s body and the man scowls as he takes in the bruises, the shredded clothes, the way Jason trembles and the tears streaming down his cheeks.

“You need to see a doctor,” the man says gently. When he holds out his hand he keeps it close to his own body, not reaching, and it’s that small consideration that makes Jason even think about trusting him. “My name is Bruce. There’s a clinic two blocks away. Just let me walk you, make sure you get there without further incident. Then we can—“

Jason jerks his mind back to the present cutting off the memory before it can get too far. He can’t think about him, about the people he’ll never see again.

He focuses on this new information as Deathstroke grumbles something about ‘too many clothes’ and Nightwing giggles that ‘it’s just a robe’.

Deathstroke answered his childhood prayers, slaughtered everyone who had hurt him. And it would seem that Jason is the only one the god has ever done that for. Tim may be the God of Wisdom but he is _wrong_ , or more likely not telling him the whole truth. Something _is_ definitely wrong with Jason Todd.

Jason is extremely bitter that he agrees with Deathstroke. What the hell is going on?

“D, wait. We’ll wake Jason.”

Nightwing’s voice is soft and breathy and happy and it sounds just like the way Dick used to mutter how much he loved Jason while they were being intimate; Dick had watched him with so much devotion it had filled Jason’s heart and nourished his soul. He’d never felt so loved, so wanted.

The strange incident from the middle of the night comes rushing back to him. He’d called Nightwing ‘Dick’ again, told him he loved him… It takes every ounce of effort to keep from reacting.

“So? Maybe we should wake him anyway,” there’s a wet, sucking sound, and a whine, as Jason tries to keep his breath steady and not panic.

“Actually,” there’s a disappointed growl that tells Jason Nightwing has shoved Deathstroke off of him, “I’ve been thinking—”

“Never a good sign.”

“Shut up, asshole. I think we need to give Jason a little space.”

“For fuck’s sake, you’re the one who said—”

“I know but… the way he reacted last night… I think I was wrong. I think there’s a better way.”

There’s a long, loaded silence and Jason finds he’s holding his breath.

“Fine,” Deathstroke snarls eventually. Then his voice drops a octave and he rumbles, “You’ll just have to deal with satisfying me all by yourself.”

Nightwing chuckles, “I’ve done it for millennia, I think I can handle it.”

“Mm. You were gone a long time—”

“A year is hardly a long time.”

“It was longer than ever before. I missed you.”

“I missed you too, my love,” Nightwing sighs.

Jason hears Nightwing gasp and giggle. The wet, smacking sound of kissing fills the room. For the first time Jason feels comfortable enough to ignore the deities and he swiftly falls back to sleep.

 

* * *

 

Several hours later, at a much more reasonable hour, Jason is gently pulled from the most restful night he has had since he’s been here by the smell of coffee and bacon.

He sits up in the bed, expecting to see only Wintergreen, and is surprised to find that the gods are at the table with huge plates of food in front of them.

“Jason!” Nightwing beams, “Come. Have some breakfast. I made sure to have one of those ‘breakfast burritos’ you like.”

Before he can timidly refuse his stomach rumbles loudly. Deathstroke smirks.

Jason shuffles to the side of the bed and glances around. No sign of the robe Tim gave him, or even the towel. The deities are watching him expectantly, eyebrows raised slightly.

He sighs in defeat and walks awkwardly to the table and sits on one of the empty benches. Again, disbelief floods through him when he notices that Deathstroke and Nightwing are much more ‘human’ sized, probably only an inch or so taller than Wintergreen, and that he fits comfortably at the table without adjusts.

The god’s return their attention to the papers they had been looking at and they eat in silence for a time.

When Jason has pretty much finish his begrudgingly good food, he glances back and forth between them a couple times. The entire atmosphere seems to have shifted. He shrugs mentally. Maybe he can take advantage of this seemingly new, kinder… rapport.

He clears his throat nervously.

“Can I… can I please have some clothes,” Jason asks, keeping his eyes on his plate.

“No,” Deathstroke says shortly, barely sparing him a glance.

Nightwing shoots him a scolding look before turning to Jason. Deathstroke rolls his eye.

“Why do you want clothes?”

Jason marvels at how Nightwing can ask such an obvious question so seriously. But he holds back the irritated reply that tries to come out.

“You had an apartment back ho—back on earth,” Jason reasons, keeping his tone deferential, “I know you were with humans enough to understand that being… naked constantly is… unpleasant.”

“I’d just feel more comfortable,” he adds quietly.

“But you’re not walking around your cities anymore,” Nightwing says slowly, like he’s explaining something to a child, “The only beings who see you now are gods.”

That’s the problem, Jason thinks, there’s a town full of gods here and, as far as he can tell, not a single other human. He’s not sure how far respect for Nightwing and Deathstroke extends, if human... pets… count as off limits, but with what seems to be a worrying relationship with deities in general, not to mention the God of Death’s threat lurking in the back of his mind, he’s not overly confident.

The memory of the dream with the Joker and their subsequent altercation in the bath makes his skin crawl. He’d rather have an orgy with all the other gods than spend another moment with that guy.

“And they all wear clothes,” he says instead.

“Exactly,” Deathstroke grunts.

Jason feels frustration bubble up.

“I think the power dynamics are clear whether or not you allow me to wear pants,” Jason snaps, daring to look the God of War in the eye.

He feels Nightwing pause, mid-bite and glance between them.

Deathstroke cocks his head and narrows his eye, muscles of his shoulders tensing.

Jason stands his ground, glaring up at the God of War in a challenge he knows he can’t win. But it feels good to stick up for himself.

He’s also a little morbidly curious how far their more benevolent attitudes extend.

“Are they?” Deathstroke drawls, a deep, deadly sound, from behind a grin, “Because you’re being awfully mouthy for pet that knows it’s place.”

“D—“

Jason’s lip curls up in a snarl. He tries to stop the furious “Fuck you!” that rushes out of his mouth before he can think better of it.

It’s not being called a ‘pet’ that pisses him off, he already knew that’s what he was. It’s being called ‘it’ like he’s an _object_ , like he doesn’t have a mind of his own, a will, intelligence… like he’s not a person at all.

Deathstroke stands and Jason leaps to his feet, knocking over his bench, and squares up to the _God of War_.

He is under no illusion that this is a fight he can win. But for some reason, all the talk the last few days, he doesn’t care. Last night was weird. He doesn’t know what to do with it and the whole thing makes him uncomfortable. If this is nothing more than a shallow act to get him to fall in line then he’d rather know now.

But Deathstroke doesn’t move toward him. His eye widens a little and his brows raise. His lip quirks up a couple of times.

Then he’s laughing.

It’s a surprisingly delightful sound. Hearty, thunderous, baritone.

Jason blinks in confusion as the deity drops back into his chair, leaning back and puts a hand to his face until the amusement subsides to a low chuckle. Nightwing sits quietly, eyes bright as he looks from Jason to his husband.

“You are a piece of work, kid,” Deathstroke finally laughs.

Then he snaps his fingers and Jason feels fabric on his skin.

For a moment he can’t believe that they gave into him, that they are actually taking him at least a little seriously.

Then Nightwing says, “Ooh, I like that a lot,” and his sensual tone draws Jason’s attention to the heated lust in his eyes.

He looks down to see a short chiton that stops mid-thigh, barely covering his dangling bits because he wasn’t given any underwear. Not that the length matters. The fabric is ridiculously soft and light. And practically sheer.

Jason scowls back up at Deathstroke who only laughs again.

“Next time be more specific,” the god huffs.

Jason opens his mouth to tell Deathstroke to go to hell when he’s interrupted by a sharp knock at the door.

Deathstroke and Nightwing exchange quizzical looks. Deathstroke shrugs.

Nightwing rises, pats Jason on the shoulder as he walks past, Jason missing when he tries to bat the hand away, and opens the door.

“Tim!” Nightwing exclaims, sounding elated. Jason’s heart leaps and he turns quickly to the entry. “This is such a pleasant surprise!”

Jason prays to the God of Wisdom that he's found a way to help him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I lied to someone in the comments last chapter. Ok, so it wasn't a lie at the time, but I decided that Jason and Bruce meeting like this was better.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tim and Jason have a heart to heart.

“Hello, NightwING—!”

Tim squawks as the taller deity tugs him into a tight hug, spinning him around into the room.

“I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever! What are you doing here?”

Jason can’t help but smile when Nightwing sets Tim down and his cheeks are pink. “Your father wanted me to ask you to join him for lunch,” Tim answers easily.

Nightwing makes a face but tousles Tim’s hair.

“That’s weird. He hasn’t wanted to see us in—“

“Eons?” Deathstroke mutters loud enough to be heard. His scowl is much more obvious.

Tim frowns past Nightwing to the god of war. “Actually—“

“Actually, the Bat only wants to see you, my love,” Deathstroke finishes, sounding unaffected and returning his attention to the papers in front of him.

Nightwing looks back to Tim in time to catch the flash of distaste the younger man shoots his husband. “Oh,” he says, disappointment clear, “Well then I don’t think I can make it.”

He turns his back on Tim and starts toward the table. Tim’s sharp grey eyes jump to Jason briefly before he reaches out and grabs Nightwing by the wrist.

“ _Actually_ , what I was going to say, was that Deathstroke has a separate engagement.”

“Not that I recall,” Deathstroke snorts.

“Your mother has requested your presence,” Tim explains.

Jason’s gaze darts between the three deities, see-through chiton forgotten.  He’s seen and heard enough since being here to know that the stories of Deathstroke’s and the Bat’s mutual dislike are founded in truth. But he doesn’t recall any rumored or mentioned animosity between the couple and Kal-el or Diana.

“It’s very important,” Tim entreats, eyes wide and pleading when Nightwing turns back to him.

Deathstroke sighs like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders and stands.

“Go see your father,” he grumbles, running his fingers through Jason’s hair as he passes and grasps Nightwing’s chin, “You’ve been complaining for nearly two decades now that he doesn’t have time for anything but his pet humans. If nothing else you can give him a piece of your mind. And I’ll go see what Diana wants.”

When their lips meet, Tim’s nose scrunches up. And when Deathstroke pulls Jason closer, using the grip in his hair to tug him back into an arch, and kisses him, Tim’s scowl deepens and his eyes burn with something that looks a little like jealousy.

But even this kiss is sweeter, gentle. It’s… actually pleasant. Jason shudders and is immediately disappointed in himself. Even more when his eyes flicker open to Deathstroke’s smug smile and Tim’s eyes narrowed in concern.

“What about Jason?” Nightwing asks, his own expression soft with affection as he raises his hand to twist the short hairs at the base of Jason’s skull between his fingers.

“Your father likes humans. Take him with you.”

“Uh… yeah. He likes humans,” Nightwing purses his lips together, “He may not be overly thrilled about how Jason ended up with us.”

Jason snorts as Tim shakes his head. The other two don’t even seem to notice.

“He was fine yesterday. Wintergreen or Tiger can check on him.”

“Don’t be stupid. I’m not sending Tiger. Besides, a summons from our parents? They probably want an update on the end of the war. And you know they won’t just take our word for it that we’ve patched things up. They’ll want details and plans… this will probably take much longer.”

It takes a moment of digging through his memory, all the way back to grammar school when they learned about the gods and their houses, to recall that Tiger is one of the Erotes, a member of Nightwing’s family and the Spirit of Desire. He very grateful that Nightwing had the sense to refuse that.

“Jason can come with me,” Tim offers, glancing between the other two and purposefully avoiding the human.

Deathstroke’s eye narrows suspiciously but Nightwing grins.

“Good idea, baby bird! You two actually have a lot in common.” He pulls Tim into another suffocating hug. “Jay’s an adorable little nerd too. Show him your rooms, Timmy.”

Tim and Jason both blush at that but the god of love just laughs brightly, ruffles Tim’s hair again, and smacks a kiss to the top of Jason’s head. “I trust you both enough to know you’ll behave.”

Deathstroke’s gaze drills into the back of Tim’s head and Jason finds himself worried about the much smaller god.

His captors move toward the door and they’re almost gone when Nightwing spins back around.

“Do you know anything, Timmy? A little heads up could be helpful.”

Tim shifts his weight from one foot to the other and twitches almost imperceptibly in Jason’s direction.

“I’m afraid not. Maybe you’ll get lucky and run into Spoiler or Orphan on your way.”

Nightwing rolls his eyes. “Yeah, like they’d ever tell me anything.”

He blows Jason a kiss and disappears down the corridor before he can see the resultant scowl.

“So,” Jason says after a moment, “Did their parents really want to see them or are you going to get in trouble later?”

The smile Tim gives him is all sharp edges and mischievous intent. “Both. I know what they want. It _is_ very important, it _does_ have to do with the war, and neither of them are going to like it. So Nightwing will be mad at me for a couple days. Which is a long time for him.”

Tim’s face falls back into a frown. “I know it’s not exactly comforting but… he’s not usually like this. The way he’s been with you since you got here. He’s usually so… kind.”

Jason adjusts the chiton, deciding it’s somehow less comfortable than being naked. Since he gave into them last night and after they backed off when he had said no, he’s having a harder time separating Dick and Nightwing again. Dick had just been so… kind, as Tim said. He was always a bit of a dumbass, always kind of pleasantly clueless about everyday things. Looking back and realizing Dick’s excitement about ordinary stuff was because he was a literal god amongst men somehow makes those moments when his eyes would go wide at things like breakfast burritos and his amused giggle at condoms… even more endearing.

Which is frustrating. Because he spent a year with Dick and he’s only spent a few days with Nightwing. So the greater amount of positive memories are still trying to find a middle ground, only to be further confused by last night.

“And Deathstroke?” He asks instead.

“He’s always an ass,” Tim replies without hesitation, “But… he has a code. I won’t say what he did to you that first night is out of character when he’s angry. But—“

“Let me guess, ‘there’s just something about me.’”

Those piercing stony eyes fix on his. “You’re not wrong.” He taps a finger once on the chiton at Jason’s chest. The skirt expands, flowing downward like liquid, and splits, shifting into very comfortable, loose fitted linen pants. The top half changes into an equally comfortable white t-shirt. And most importantly, both are opaque.

Jason puffs a tiny sigh of relief and Tim smiles at him before motioning to the door, leading the way down the corridor in the opposite direction from where Deathstroke and Nightwing went, and continues.

“It’s still not really my place to say, Jason. And even if it was, I’m not sure I’d be able to find the right words.”

“So, what? I wait for those two to tell me why they’re so obsessed? They don’t seem to know either.”

“No… the Bat wants to tell you himself.”

Jason stops in the middle of the hall, face skewed in confusion. “Why? What’s his stake in all this? I don’t know him. Hell, I don’t think I’ve ever prayed to him once in my entire life.”

Tim takes his hand and starts rubbing little circles into his palm with his thumb as he gently tugs Jason along.

“I promise, he’ll explain everything tonight. It’s just—“

“Complicated.”

Tim’s smile is warm and understanding. Which almost makes Jason even angrier. But he ignores it, keeps it buried. Tim is a good person and he _is_ trying to help. Jason doesn’t want to alienate the only god who’s been willing to even attempt helping him get home.

“Things seemed a little better this morning,” Tim says tentatively after they walked a ways in silence. “You don’t seem as frightened or… resistant.”

He doesn’t miss the way Tim glances at him from the corner of his eye, looking him up and down quickly, furtively.

“They were… weird last night. Asked for permission. Then… didn’t touch me when I said no. I overheard Nightwing say they needed a new approach so, I don’t know.” He shrugs. “Maybe they’ve realized they’re being douchebags. Maybe they’ll change. I’m not getting my hopes up.”

The god of wisdom hums noncommittally and chews on his lip.

“If whatever you want to say is one of those rare things you can tell me you might as well just spit it out,” Jason teases.

Well, _mostly_ teases.

“This isn’t an excuse,” Tim starts after a deep breath, and Jason doesn’t like the sound of this so far, “Just an explanation. But… they don’t realize they’ve done anything wrong.”

Jason jerks to halt again and gapes at the deity. “Excuse me?”

“I mean, not since that first time, with Deathstroke when he was trying to… um… punish?... you. But the rest of it… uh…”

He trails off, blushing at the look of utter disbelief on Jason’s face, then forces himself to continue. “I said it wasn’t an excuse. But they’re not me or the Bat, they don’t spend a lot of time around or with humans. Even though people _aren’t_ toys, some gods, like Deathstroke, still feel a sense of ownership over their creations.”

“So, Deathstroke thinks he has the _right_ to do whatever he wants to whoever he wants?”Jason blinks at him, trying to wrap his mind around yet another absurdity.

Tim hesitates and chews his tongue for a moment. “Initially. That first time. When he couldn’t understand how you’d kept Nightwing away from him for so long.”

“And now?” Jason snarls, unable to contain his anger any longer. He snatches his hand away from Tim’s and it’s all he can do not to punch him when the god’s features soften in sympathy.

“Now, with you, it’s more similar to Nightwing’s thinking. They… uh… love you. Nightwing thought that you’d come around. That nothing had to change between you. That…” Tim swallows hard and looks away, blush deepening, “that if he kept… _loving_ you the way he had been when you were together before, that you’d realize how much he and Deathstroke… care, how much they want you to be with them.”

“That’s fucking bullshit, Tim. You _have_ to know that.”

“I do. But I’m also a god, Jason. I’m one of the younger deities and I’m thousands of years old. I know it’s bullshit. I know it’s not fair to ask you to understand and that’s not what I’m doing. But I also know that the gods have a very different perspective than humans. They’re powerful and isolated. The ones who spend time getting to know humans are the weird ones. Me, the Bat… we understand you better because we’ve spent centuries living among you, learning. And because we’re immortal, cosmic, forces of nature, we’re slow to change—”

“Oh, you mean that Dick—gods damnit!—“ Jason all but shouts in frustration, “—that _Nightwing_ might graduate from his easy-rape magic to just using a drug like a human?”

That makes Tim cross his arms and narrow his eyes even as his ears turn pink. “Are you talking about the powers he was born with? Something as much a part of him as your ability to speak? His ability is to make his partner happy, to provide unparalleled pleasure. It’s powered by love. He can only _use_ it when he _feels_ it.”

Jason frowns. He doesn’t feel _too_ bad about never having thought of it that way before. But now that Tim’s said it, if Jason is honest with himself and looks back at everything, setting aside the emotional onslaught of his agony, anger, and general misery … every time Nightwing has used his power, he has seemed concerned about Jason’s pain.

He deflates. Rubs the back of his neck to work out some of the tension before it gives him a headache. “How can the god of love be so fucking clueless about love?”

Tim is gazing directly into his eyes. “Love is messy and complicated and confusing. There’s as many different ways to love as there are people.” Tim tears his eyes away and fidgets before taking Jason’s hand once more and leading the way. “And all of it flows through Nightwing.”

Tim turns down a side corridor. It’s slightly smaller, narrower, except that the whole length of the right hand side is open, from the waist up, to the sky beyond. There’s not a scrap of land or sea in sight. Just blue horizon and fluffy white clouds as far as the eye can see.

“Woah.”

“Do you like the view?” Tim asks with a smug little smile.

“What view,” he teases, “There’s nothing to look at but clouds.”

Jason’s just about to ask where exactly they are. He can breathe, so they’re not in space but if they were on Earth people would have found this place. Tim had said only the powers of the gods could access their home and Jason kind of wants to hear him explain how whatever pocket dimension or parallel universe this is works. He always did like to listen to Tim talk.

But Tim huffs and pulls him to a door across the hall, pausing with his hand on the knob.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you or make excuses. I just thought that maybe knowing their motivations were… well intended?... that maybe it would ease your mind a little? Or somehow make everything at least a bit less awful.” His smile is apologetic as he looks up, back into his eyes. “Even I’m still not great with people.”

Jason fidgets under the increasingly intense gaze. “Don’t worry about it. People aren’t great with people. It doesn’t make anything better or less awful. It doesn’t change what’s happened. But… maybe, if… if you’re right… maybe I can use that to make the future bearable.” He meets those grey eyes. “I’m going to be here the rest of my life right? There’s nothing you can do about it. Is there?”

“There’s nothing I can do, no. But I promise, once you hear what the Bat has to say… well, honestly you’re going to be pretty livid at first. Then I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

“Ok, if we’re going to hang out today, no more vague comments that you can’t explain. Alright? If you can’t tell me the details don’t tease.”

Tim smirks and pushes open the door as he says “Deal.”

All the air leaves Jason in a rush.

“Oh my gods,” he mutters, hushed and breathless.

Tim’s rooms are as different from Nightwing’s and Deathstroke’s as night and day. Where theirs is wide open, immaculate rectangle, crisp, bright and airy, Tim’s is a tall circular tower, every wall covered in dark wood shelving stacked with thousands, tens of thousands, of books and scrolls. Every twenty feet or so is broken up by a cushy looking window seat, many of which are also covered in books. There are long, slim slats of windows higher up, to let in the light.

The floor is covered in a patterned red and black rug, dotted with big comfy arm chairs, sofas, loungers, and cushions. Off to Jason left is a smaller side room, most of which is take up by a large, unmade, four poster bed. He quickly looks away but not before he notices that there are books stacked there too.

In the center of the main room, and the thing that grabs his attention and curiosity, is a large, messy desk. In the middle of it sits a slim, silver metal… portfolio? But unlike one Jason has ever seen. He notes the seam where it ostensibly opens, but it’s latched in a weird way.

“What is it?”

“It’s a computer.”

Jason snorts. Computers are so big they build special rooms to house them. “Bullshit. It’s the size of a book.”

“It’s the future of the computers you’re used to. Arsenal and my mothers got it this far. Now it’s my turn.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s the culmination of a series of the most incredible innovations in history. And it allows easy access to all the world’s cumulated knowledge, provides a new modes of artistic creation and scientific exploration, facilitates instant communication with the far side of the planet. It’s potential as a tool for progress and the betterment of humanity is unmatched.”

“Sounds incredible,” Jason says. Then he frowns. “And dangerous.”

Tim nods knowingly. “That’s where I come in. Arsenal still plays with the designs and my mothers still find new ways to communicate information,” Tim hands him small thin rectangle and touches his finger to the glossy black screen. Jason flinches when the screen brightens without warning. Then he stares at it in wonder. “I need to find a way to inspire people to use such immense power _wisely_.”

“You have a lot of faith in people, don’t you?” He hands the device back to Tim, hyper aware of the way the god’s fingers brush against his own.

“Of course,” Tim answers softly, fingers wandering up to Jason’s wrist, “Everything seems so dire when you’re mortal. When you have less than a century to live, everything that goes wrong seems like the end of the world. When you’re standing on the outside, watching a species grow and evolve… it’s easy to see the patterns. There may be small setbacks, growing pains that seem apocalyptic. But generally speaking, humanity as a group is making progress by leaps and bounds.”

Jason watches Tim’s fingers massage his wrist and tries to ignore the warmth pooling. “The war is just a growing pain?”

The hands pause in their ministrations. “The war is the result of a cosmic imbalance. It started the year you were born but it was brewing long before.”

“Cosmic imbalance?”

Tim grins. “Sorry, I broke the rule.”

“Ah. God stuff you can’t tell me about?”

“Yeah. God stuff.”

Jason shifts his weight to his other foot, careful not to jostle the hands still on his arm. “The war looked like it was going to end there for a minute. It was the closest they’d ever come to figuring it out. Then, right before I… left, there was a huge skirmish.”

“In the few days since you’ve been gone, they’ve come even closer. The leaders of each faction are meeting soon to bring it to an end.”

Jason blinks in surprise. In a week they’d gone from talking about peace, to back at each other’s throats, to peace again. “Really?”

To his disappointment, Tim gently frees his hand and sighs, almost regretfully. “Really.”

“How does a ‘cosmic imbalance’ shift so dramatically?”

Jason jolts in surprise when Tim bursts out laughing.

“Sorry… it’s just… not to sound like a broken record but it’s complicated.”

“Fine. Then lets talk about something different. Show my around your little paradise here.” He wave his hand around the giant library.

They spend the next several hours buried in books, making jokes, laughing. Tim seems to go out of his way to take Jason’s mind off everything. It’s almost relaxing. And when the god tells him they’d better get him back he feels his heart fall into his stomach.

But Tim takes his hand and holds it the whole time they walk back. If anyone else did that, he’d feel like a child. With Tim though, it’s grounding.

“Remember,” the deity says when they’re outside the door, “You should be able to talk to them about things when you see them again. Nightwing at least. But everything should be change after tonight. The Bat will send someone to collect you and you’ll meet up with everyone and hopefully things will be much clearer.”

He pats Jason’s hand and moves to leave but Jason grips tighter.

“Thank you, Tim,” he says, staring into his eyes.

He’s not exactly surprised when the god kisses him or when he returns it. He is surprised that it didn’t happen earlier, with all the lingering touches and ‘accidental’ invasions of personal space.

“Don’t thank me yet,” Tim hums, cupping a hand to his face, “I’ll see you later.”

And then he’s gone.

Jason sighs. This is not the life he expected.

He pushes open the door, reassured by Tim’s words that Nightwing and Deathstroke aren’t home yet.

He doesn’t make it three steps before thin, freezing cold arms wrapping around his shoulders, and hot, rotten breath whispering over his ear.

“It’s been hell getting you alone, little birdie. But now your knight in shining armor is going to whisk you away.”

The sounds of his protests are drowned by maniacal cackling as he’s surrounded by thick, suffocating darkness, and pulled under into the icy ink of a void.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry there was a lot of exposition here, a lot of important information but it's a set up chapter. Lot's of action in the next one and some secrets are about to get revealed!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The answers start here! 
> 
> Start.
> 
> You don't get all of them in one go. Sorry ;)
> 
> If you haven't already read [The Big Fight](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17924810) I'd check it out, before/after this chapter, doesn't really matter. Doesn't actually really matter at all if you want to skip it but it could be... insightful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm kind of assuming that most of you are here in no small part due to the Greek mythology stuff but if there is anything common in Greek mythology that would bother you to read about in a fic and hasn't shown up here yet, please jump to the end note for some spoilery warnings because I'm a space-cadet and didn't think about any of this until it was too late.
> 
> Otherwise, enjoy. The Joker is hard to write and this chapter still feels like a mess to me. But I can only tweak it so many times before I have to throw up my hands a say 'oh well, all the important stuff is there' and move on :D
> 
>  
> 
> [My Tumblr](https://scandalsavagefanfic.tumblr.com/)

He thought he had passed out again. Pitch black presses in from all sides, thick like oil sludge and heavy like earth. The pressure steals his breath and white stars pop across what passes for his vision.

Until it stops as suddenly as it had started and Jason collapses to his hands and knees on the cold stone floor, sucking in lungsful of crisp air while long, icy fingers rub up and down his spine. It makes him shudder in repulsion.

“There, there, sweetums. You don’t ever have to travel like that again. Good ol’ uncle J promises. You’re home now,” the hand on his back leaves and grips his chin, tilting his face up to meet the god of death’s acidic gaze, “You’re gonna stay here forever, baby.”

Jason’s eyes narrow. “Nightwing and Deathstroke—”

“A bully and a fool. Dealers choice on which is which. They can’t keep us apart, pumpkin. The underworld works a little differently than the Hall of Divinity. No one is getting in here without my say-so. And even if they could, those two little brats don’t have the juice to take you from me.”

Jason tries to keep from fixating on the large stone platform topped with garish green and purple sheets but it’s difficult to take the god’s tone any differently. Especially with his now fairly extensive past experience with deities to pull from, not to mention the fact that Joker went to the effort to magic away the clothes Tim had given him.

This can’t be happening. There was finally some hope, a little dot of light on the horizon, that he would be able to find a way to make the best of his predicament. And now he’s trapped in the underworld with no way to escape and a crazy death god eying him like he’s a prize?

“I thought there were rules,” Jason tries, “About messing with the other gods’ stuff…”

Joker’s neon green eyes get too bright, his blood red grin stretches too wide across his face. “Surely you know by now, little birdie, that you’re not just some mortal those morons happened to run into? The rules don’t apply to whatever you are now.”

Jason yelps as he is suddenly dragged forward and thrown onto the bed by his hair before he can ask for any kind of clarification and his curiosity is immediately shoved aside by survival instincts.

The second his limbs are under him he scrambles up, across the surface, trying to get to off on the far side so he can make a futile break for it down the hallway he can see there. But those cold, thin fingers wrap around his ankle and pull him back before he makes it more than a couple feet.

Then one hand rests on the back of his neck where it meets his shoulders and pushes him down, pinning him to the mattress and muffling his cries when the sharp nails of the other hand rake down his back. It’s so deep Jason can feel blood rolling down his ribs.

He tries to turn. To kick and hit and bite, anything. He knows it’s useless, but he is very tired of this feeling of helplessness, at being at the mercy of creatures with too much power and not enough empathy. Struggling at least gives him an outlet for that frustration and maybe he’ll get a lucky hit.

But Joker just chuckles, layers himself over Jason’s mangled back to blow putrid breath across his ear when he says, “You were supposed to be mine. Not hers. He promised.”

Fingers find their way inside him, long and cold, spreading and digging, driving the question from his lips back down his throat. But the nails are sharp like little daggers and Jason shouts into the stupid purple bed when they curl and scrape at his walls.

“A good thing to remember for the future, sweetpea,” Joker cackles, “The God of Truth is a filthy little liar.”

Abruptly, he’s flipped onto his back, grunt of pain catching in his throat when a skeletal hand wraps around it and squeezes. Jason’s own hands fly up to claw at the narrow, pasty arms. He tries, again, to kick and twist away as the god pulls his fingers from Jason’s body but the bastard doesn’t even budge.

If he could have sighed in relief he would have, short lived as it would’ve been. He thrashes harder when he feels Joker nudge against his hole.

“Shh, shh, shh,” Joker hushes him, tightening his grip while his free hand reaches up to twirl Jason’s hair, “It’s ok. Don’t worry. I’ll take good care of you. You can still be mine. Just in a different way, the way he was.”

Jason can’t breathe, he works his mouth and scratches at the vice around his throat. Barely feels it when Joker runs his fingers across his cheek, down the bridge of his nose, and taps the tip. Something possessive and angry flickers over god’s expression.

“You look so like him,” Joker whispers, almost like he’s speaking to himself, as he sinks into him.

Stars are popping in his vision again and darkness is creeping in at the edges. There’s no air in him to scream and the tears streaming down his face are more because of his inability to breathe than the intrusion. He deeply resents that the fact of it doesn’t even upset him anymore, that it’s more the circumstances around it, the fact that this isn’t Nightwing or Deathstroke, the fact that another deity feels like he has the right to do whatever the fuck he wants, to whoever he wants. The fact that the rules stopped the Font from helping him but didn’t protect him from Joker.

Something else is wrong. When Joker allows him to breathe again it’s difficult. Each inhale is labored, each exhale wheezes. His limbs get heavier until he can’t keep up his struggle and they fall uselessly to the bed. His body feels clammy and chilled.

As if the God of Death is leeching the life out of him.

“St-stop,” Jason says weakly, “—ki-killing… me.”

The god laughs, that high pitched, super villain, cackle, and shoves into him more aggressively. “What’s the matter, pumpkin? Isn’t this where you wanted to be?”

“Wh-wha—”

“I’m Death, little birdie. You think I don’t know all your sad, suicidal thoughts? The way you looked at the balcony, longing to throw yourself over? I tried to nudge you, but you kept getting interrupted.” Joker sighs, digs all his nails into Jason’s chest and drags them down, slicing bloody trails into his skin. It hurts but he doesn’t have the energy to do anything but lie there. “Lucky me though! Its better like this anyway. If you had died, your soul would have moved on. It’d still hurt him. But this way I get something too!”

Whatever Joker is doing to drain him seems to have plateaued, holding him on the edge of death. It’s hard to think, hard to do anything but let the misery of his situation wash him under. But something manages to click in the back of his mind.

It isn’t fair. He is a _good_ person. He knows it isn’t how the universe works, but he doesn’t _deserve_ any of this. He heals the sick, protects the weak. He’s not afraid to fight when he must but only ever as a last resort. He _is_ a good person. This is not his life, his future. He won’t let it be.

If he dies, his soul will move on.

“You k-know he was jus-just using you…”

The movement above him stops. The painful hammering into his body falters before ceasing completely.

The way Joker growls, “What did you say?” is much less maniacally gleeful than anything else he’s said. It’s full of venom and simmering anger.

Stories are all Jason has. Ancient myths about the love between the Bat and the god of Death.  Before it went sideways. Stories, and the way the deity has been talking.

“Th-the Bat. U-used you. T-to get her back… th-the Cat.”

Other than the way his bones crack when he hits the wall on the far side of the room, Jason instantly feels better without the god of death touching him, more alive.

Blood drips from his mouth as he tries to pull himself to his feet but something cold and heavy slams into his gut so hard he _hears_ the crunch of his ribs breaking. Another hit to his back and this time he screams when his spine cracks.

“H-he n-never loved you…” Jason gasps, every word is like being stabbed, “L-l-like you said… h-he’s a-a liar.”

He’s pulled up by his hair, slammed against the wall and held there by the curved end of a crow bar against his throat.

“This could have been so good, sweetness,” Joker hisses, slamming a knee into Jason’s genitals, “I looked for you for a long time. After I overheard the that little know-it-all tell the Bat he’d found you. But he kept you hidden under lock and key. You could have been standing right in front of me and as long as we were in that disgusting city of his, I’d have never known. Then, the moment you leave, those two idiots just trip over their own feet and land right on top of you.”

Jason is dying. He can feel it with the constant stream of blood and the gurgling sound when he tries to breathe. He thinks maybe a rib has punctured his lung. It was the plan. But suddenly curiosity has the better of him. It sounds like Joker knows more than Nightwing or Deathstroke and is more willing to share than Tim.

“Wha-what are you—”

Joker presses the metal into his throat harder, eyes flashing menacingly. “All you had to do was lay there and look like your daddy. But you just had to go and open your stupid mortal mouth and ruin everything.”

He can’t speak but judging by the look of wicked humor on the god’s face, Jason assumes that his expression adequately echoes his disbelief.

“Aw. Poor pumpkin,” Joker coos, grinning.

He lets Jason collapse back to the floor on his hands and knees, kicks him in the gut, then rests the crow bar against the back of his skull, taking aim. Jason tries to push down the fear. This is the only way out. If he had been able to choose, he would have picked a more peaceful, less horrifying death. But it’s this death or worse. Maybe it would be different if he didn’t know there was an afterlife, maybe if one life was all he got, he would have hesitated longer, thought on it longer. But ending it now, moving to the next stage, whatever it was… it’s better than being trapped with Joker. And maybe Deathstroke and Nightwing had kinder intentions but death is better than a lifetime of what he’d known until last night.

He finds himself hoping Tim doesn’t take it too hard.

“All that time you spent together, and he didn’t even tell you. And now you’re going to die without ever really knowing,” he laughs evilly, “It’ll hurt him so much! Knowing that all he had to do to really protect you was be honest! _Ha_! The God Truth! Too funny.”

The bar lifts off his head.

He feels a sharp pain, hears a deafening crunch.

Then nothing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then an inferno.

Something deep within him roars to life. Every nerve, every vein, every neurological pathway ignites, fire speeding through his mind, his body, his soul like those routes are fuses. He doesn’t know what goes off when the fire reaches its destination, but everything feels ready to burst. It feels like everything inside him is being incinerated and rebuilt, atom by atom, molecule by molecule.

He’s dimly aware of Joker’s cackling cutting off abruptly as he gets back to his feet. But everything is too bright, the white light all around him feels like it’s burning through his eyes. The ringing in his ears feels like it’s going to melt his eardrums.

Jason stumbles in the direction of the hallway he saw earlier. When the icy grip of Death grabs at his wrist he shoves back, more than a little surprised when the touch disappears with a curse that doesn’t come from his own raw, shredded vocal cords.

Slowly the light fades and his vision returns so he starts running, tripping and crashing into walls. It feels like his brain is being cleaved in two, but he manages to wonder how he’s even upright let alone moving freely and without pain in his chest.

He is disoriented, the world around him spins and swims. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but he feels a tug in his chest guiding him forward. And since he has no other options, he follows.

His whole body trembles so violently he collapses to the floor again and again. Each time he feels Joker draw nearer. Each time he throws his hands up to protect himself he feels the Joker fall back.

The burst of energy is gone and the fumes are fading fast. It feels like he’s been running forever and whatever is happening to his body is creating energy but consuming it just as quickly. He instinctively knows he needs to rest, to recharge, recalibrate. There has to be a way out.

Finally, there are doors ahead of him. Big, looming monstrosities carved out of dark stone with thousands of images he can make out etched into the surface. Two giant hyenas lie sleeping on either side of the path, guarding the exit.

Jason ignores them when they wake as he runs past, focusing on the way the tugging in his chest gets stronger and stronger. He’s almost there. He prays they’re not quick enough to catch him before…

He bursts through the doors, immediately slamming into a huge, solid, rock-hard wall of black and orange.

It dazes him even more, enough for it to take several slow moments to realize he didn’t slide to the ground when his legs gave out. That someone is speaking to him.

“—Kid? Jason?!”

He never thought he would be happy to hear that voice.

“D-Deathstroke…” The god’s name comes out weak but now that he doesn’t have to move, Jason’s head is clearing a little, his vision stabilizing to find Nightwing, brows knit in worry, examining him for a moment before something over Jason’s shoulder catches his attention and he snarls viciously.

“What did you do to him you demented piece of garbage?”

“Nothing you didn’t do first, lover boy!” Joker cackles, “Not for lack of trying. I think your little mortal toy is broken.”

Deathstroke shifts Jason back around so that he can see what’s happening, holding him up with one arm, and draws his sword with the other. “Come out of your hole, clown, and I’ll show you something broken,” he growls.

“Oh please, _Dick_ stroke, your tiny toothpick isn’t going to hurt me.” The too wide smile never wavers.

“It won’t kill you, but I guarantee it’ll fucking hurt.”

“Promises, promis—Batsy! Baby! You haven’t visited in so long I thought you’d forgotten where I lived!”

At Joker’s words, both Nightwing and Deathstroke jolt around. Through the slowly clearing fuzz, Jason sees the Bat for the first time, in all his glory. Black cape flowing around him seemingly independent of the nonexistent breeze, long pointed ears and white eyes. The image of dignity and strength that graces every courthouse, law enforcement building, and seat of government in the world.

The face that strikes fear into the hearts of evildoers turns toward Jason. Deathstroke’s arm tightens around him protectively.  The Bat’s lips, visible below the cowl, press together into a thin line before the god’s attention turns back to Joker.

“Sorry about your boy, sweetheart. We were just joking around, having a couple laughs and things got a little out of hand. But you’re here now and everything’s ok again!”

“Enough, Joker. I’ll deal with you later.”

Jason straightens, manages to get his feet under him. That voice. He knows that voice. He’s longed for that voice for however long he’s been here. Never thought he’d hear it again.

He blinks, trying to clear more of the fuzz but it’s starting to get worse. Only a raspy croaking sound comes out when he tries to speak. His head starts swimming once more.

“I’m taking him.”

“Like hell you are,” Deathstroke rumbles threateningly.

“After what you and Diana just told us? D is right, I think it’s best Jason come with us.”

“After what Tim told me, you’ll be lucky if I ever allow you near him again.”

“If what you said is true, you’re not going to have a choice,” Nightwing snaps.

“He doesn’t have a choice anyway. Regardless of who his parents are, the kid is mortal, and we made a claim.”

“D—”

The Bat snorts. “Take another look, Deathstroke, and see if the evidence supports your conclusions.”

The adrenaline has run its course. The fire within him burned through every inch and has flickered out leaving Jason feeling cleansed and new but also weary, hollow, and drained.

With the last of his strength, he stands and pushes away from Deathstroke. The three gods stop arguing instantly.

He sways on his feet, blinking at the Bat, trying to bring him into focus. When he thinks he can manage it, he steps forward. Only for his knees to buckle and send him flying into familiar arms.

If he had an ounce of energy left, he’d cry.

“B—Bruce?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, if you've made it this far you know that this fic is based heavily on Greek mythology. And if you've seen the [appendices on my Tumblr](https://scandalsavagefanfic.tumblr.com/WAtGP%20-%20Appendices) you know that includes the fact that 'sibling' deities (the Bat and the Cat, Kal-El and Diana, etc.) are married and reproducing. You know that TECHNICALLY Deathstroke and Nightwing are cousins, etc. That's very technically because my little universe here works a little differently. For starters, my gods are going around reproducing with same sex partners, they don't really have genes/blood/biological family the way humans do and none of them strictly 'related' the way we think of it. The Font was born like Athena, from the minds of Diana and Harlequin, Deathstroke was born when Kal-El and Diana had an epic fight and his laser vision chipped off a piece of her metal bracelet... that kind of stuff. And Jason's parentage in particular is SUPER complicated (what you learn in this chapter is only one small part of it).
> 
> BUT, it does kind of read like pseudo/incest (even though I'm keeping it as vague as possible) and if it's difficult for you to separate the two it's best to stop now. I really am so sorry. When I first started this fic it was a much smaller thing and I wasn't going to do quite this much world-building. Then, I when I was playing with the skeletons of existing mythology I kind of took all that stuff for granted. I didn't even really think about it until like chapter 4 or 5 and then I tried to write around it because it was too late to tag without spoilers and that did not work out.
> 
> Anyway, I'm going to add the tags in a week or so, so that everyone who is subbed/bookmarked to this fic has a chance to read it without being spoiled. Sorry for the inconvenience and for unwittingly misleading anyone. I can't believe I didn't think to put like "Greek Mythology typical pseudo/incest" up there on like chapter two. I really do feel awful about it :'(


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